The Hornet's Sting_ The Amazing Untold Story of World War II Spy Thomas Sneum - Mark Ryan [55]
Not everyone in England seemed to resent their presence, though. As they cleaned themselves up on the street, Kjeld noticed a prostitute observing them from over the road. He didn’t know when, if ever, he would next have the pleasure of a woman’s company, so he crossed the road to begin negotiations. Tommy took up the story:
Another girl intercepted Kjeld and she was far more beautiful than the prostitute, I can assure you. This girl said to Kjeld, ‘A good-looking boy like you doesn’t need to resort to that.’ She was smiling to convey her meaning, but Kjeld was probably confused. So she said, ‘Come home with me. I won’t charge and you’ll still get what you want. In fact I’ll be very grateful for the company.’ Kjeld was a good-looking chap but I still don’t think he could quite believe his luck. Anyway, he left me—and the prostitute—in the middle of the street and went off with the other girl. I heard later that they had stayed together for a good few months.
Pedersen had little time to enjoy his new lover in the more immediate future, however. On 27 June, just five days after he had landed exhausted in that field in the north-east of England, he was commissioned as a pilot officer in the RAF and left London for Training School 18, Woking, Surrey. His dream to fly with Britain’s finest had come true.
Thomas Sneum, who had shared that same dream, didn’t have long to reflect upon the wisdom of the path he had taken, almost on impulse. To all intents and purposes, he was already an agent of the Secret Intelligence Service.
Chapter 16
SIS, SOE AND A STRAINED MARRIAGE
BACK ON FANOE the following afternoon, there was a knock on the door of the Sneum family home. Christian Sneum found Hauptmann Meinicke, the German commander on the island, standing uncomfortably outside. Tommy later received from his father a detailed account of the conversation, which went as follows:
‘May I come in?’ asked the German.
The headmaster was too much of a gentleman to refuse, despite his resentment against the occupation, and showed his uninvited guest into the lounge.
‘Sir, I’m afraid I have some bad news for you,’ began Meinicke solemnly. ‘It’s your son Thomas. He took a plane and tried to fly out of Denmark with another man called Kjeld Pedersen.’
‘Tried?’
Meinicke looked even more uneasy as he explained. ‘It seems they were heading for England. But the plane was just a Hornet Moth, a single-engine trainer.’
Tommy’s father asked if they had been shot down, and was relieved at least to hear that they had not. ‘If this is true, is there any chance they may have got to England?’
‘No chance,’ the German officer said abruptly. ‘The range of the plane was too short.’
Asked to explain further, Meinicke pointed out that the maximum range of a Hornet Moth was less than six hundred kilometers, while England was over seven hundred kilometers from Odense. ‘Unfortunately, we can only conclude that your son is now at the bottom of the North Sea. I’m sorry.’
Sneum senior didn’t know what to think. He had been told of the short message that Poul Andersen had heard on the BBC a few days earlier which had confirmed the safe arrival in England of two Danish pilots. Since then, he had allowed himself to believe that one of those pilots was Thomas. Now he wasn’t so sure.
Meinicke saw what damage his news had caused. ‘Mr Sneum,’ he said, just before leaving, ‘I know this won’t come as any consolation, but I’ll say it anyway. At his age, I might have done precisely the same thing, had I been in his shoes.’
A week later Else Sneum would hear another version of what had become of her husband; one that was even less accurate than Meinicke’s. She had already begun to worry about Tommy’s long silence when a letter arrived at her parents’ house in Copenhagen. She had been staying there with Marianne