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infamous for putting matches under fingernails before pulling them off completely. They used thumb screws and tongs to distort and crush the fingers themselves. If that didn’t crack a prisoner’s resolve, they would not hesitate to use the tongs on the testicles of their victims. Some of the most stubborn characters were also softened up with relentless beatings. Although this had not yet happened in Denmark, where the Abwehr and their disciples among the Danish police currently dealt with subversion, Sneum knew that the Gestapo would introduce their sadistic methods sooner or later. Long after the war, Tommy admitted: ‘I was afraid more often than people seem to realize. Some resistance people went into interrogations as men and came out as vegetables. Who wouldn’t have been afraid? I suppressed my fear, and as a result there were those who thought I was a coldblooded fellow, someone who even liked the idea of killing people. But I hated it all.’

Back in Copenhagen on that sunny early winter day, Duus Hansen was allowed to see more of the real Tommy Sneum in the space of a few minutes than many others ever came to know. Each of them had admitted that he was not a superhero. This created trust and, on that basis, Duus Hansen said he was more than happy to work with Tommy. However, he wanted to maintain his anonymity in all his dealings with London, since he didn’t know the spymasters there. Sneum saw the logic of that condition and agreed to it.

Duus Hansen remembered listening to Sneum’s condemnation of Christophersen and believed his criticism to be justified:

From his explanation I realized that Sneum was the man to build up the intelligence organization, for he had only brought Christophersen along as a telegrapher, and therefore Christophersen was in no position to do something on his own because Sneum was his superior. Sneum said that the story about the transmitter being lost on the way to Jutland was wrong, and that he had taken it into his possession, but he was missing the crystals. That meant the crystals and transmitter were safe.

The engineer knew he would be able to unite the two, and Tommy wasn’t about to squander the opportunity to bring a true radio expert on board. This decision would have long-term benefits for British radio communications behind enemy lines, because Duus Hansen’s innovative genius took the design of transmitters to a new level.

When he examined Sneum’s transmitter, he found the technology laughable: ‘A closer look at the transmitter showed that it was not fit for purpose, and it was necessary to build a new transmitter.’ Duus Hansen knew he could create a far more effective radio set which weighed less than a tenth of the cumbersome and primitive British model. His account suggests that he met with Christophersen and persuaded the nervous telegrapher to loan him the vital crystals, however temporarily. For, within seventy-two hours, Duus Hansen had not only constructed the new radio, but also teamed up with Sneum for transmission. Duus Hansen confirmed of that new partnership: ‘As soon as I had built the new transmitter, we tried to contact England.’ They worked enthusiastically, transmitting Tommy’s first-hand account of the Anti-Comintern Pact riots. As usual, there was no reply, but for the first time Sneum was confident that his message had reached London.

At the end of the war, when Duus Hansen was recommended for the Distinguished Service Order (DSO), his file mentioned the first meeting with Sneum:

He [Duus Hansen] succeeded in establishing contact with a man sent from Britain by parachute in 1941. There were two Danish parachutists who went to London and came back to Denmark and [Duus Hansen] contacted them. They carried a radio transmitter with them, but could not operate it because they were not very experienced. They were trying to establish contact with London. [Duus Hansen] asked them if he could repair their sets and work and operate them without London knowing about it. This was the start.

In reality, of course, Sigfred and Tommy made contact with Duus Hansen,