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Rabagliati’s interest in Rottboell indicated that he thought the young Dane was about to be recruited by the SOE, for what might turn into a rival mission inside Denmark. The spymaster knew that time was short if he was going to get his own, SIS, agent back into Denmark early enough to take control of intelligence operations there for the British. The battle between the rival British departments was gathering pace, with the Danes their unwitting pawns. Tommy Sneum, who didn’t even know the difference between SIS and SOE at the time, observed later: ‘From what I understand there was a lot of jealousy from SOE people, afraid of their position, scared that they would not be recognized as proper intelligence officers.’ But the insecurity ran two ways, with SIS equally concerned that their secret domain had been invaded by a bunch of bright, eager but inexperienced young SOE men, not long out of Oxford and Cambridge.

Linguistically at least, Rabagliati couldn’t compete for Denmark against the twenty-eight-year-old Hollingworth, the SOE man who was effectively becoming his rival spymaster in London. ‘Holly’, as Turnbull called him, spoke such good Danish after working in business there before the war that he could pass as a native. He also had friends in high places, having been posted to SOE at the direct request of the organization’s chief, Sir Charles Hambro. But SIS, and Rabagliati in particular, were determined to show SOE who was boss in the world of covert operations. In the colonel’s sphere, that meant winning the race to drop the first agents into Denmark—fully trained or not.

Who would prevail? Hollingworth was young and ambitious. His pointed nose, thin lips and narrow eyes gave the impression that he was more than capable of ruthlessness; and, indeed, he would demonstrate that quality in abundance in due course. Meanwhile, Rabagliati had already shown a killer instinct in battle, and age hadn’t diminished the competitive edge he brought to everything he did.

The contest between SIS and SOE was well and truly under way. It would turn deadly before very long.

Chapter 17

SPY SCHOOL

COLONEL RABAGLIATI SAT DOWN with Tommy in his hotel one day and worked out a plan of action for the pilot’s return to Denmark. It would be something to hold on to during his darkest, loneliest moments as a British agent, a rulebook to be followed from the moment he first set foot on home soil. The early days would be the most dangerous. With that in mind, Tommy soon knew precisely whom he should and should not contact, and what his objectives were.

Sabotage or any open defiance of the Germans was out of the question. The Lake Tissoe plan, to pick up the twenty other Danish pilots, was similarly dismissed. The British wanted high-grade, regular intelligence about troop and ship movements, political and technological developments, defenses, changes in German officer personnel, or in the civilian attitude towards the Germans; anything, in fact, that might be useful to the Allies. Sneum was given a new series of numbered codes, pertaining to each type of ship, its class and size, to simplify the dangerous job of transmitting back to Britain when the time came. He learned them under the watchful eye of MI6 instructors, whose job it was to ensure that he committed everything to memory.

The training course was held in a mansion called the House of Anna in West Dulwich, London, a white Georgian building with a mock-Greek façade. Tommy remembered:

The training was a scream. The British were trying to teach me the command structure of the German hierarchy. They produced detailed sketches of what they described as the latest uniforms of the Germans in Denmark. But I knew the uniforms had changed some months earlier.

I said, ‘It’s a good thing I’ve brought a copy of the German Soldiers’ Handbook over with me.’ Each soldier had this book as part of his basic kit and it was about an inch thick, showing all the exact, up-to-date uniforms and precisely how they should