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After a few weeks of these exchanges, Tommy returned to Fanoe and took a stroll one summer’s evening down the Western High Street of Nordby, with Meinicke and his adjutant walking on either side of him. They were spotted by two of Sneum’s friends from childhood, Hugo Lee Svarrer and Jens Nielsen. Tommy smiled as they passed. The Danes’ greeting was not so warm: ‘They spat at me,’ Tommy revealed later. ‘And one said to the other: “That fucking German-loving swine.” When you hear something like that, it hurts.’ At the time, Tommy was too shocked to react. Though they probably hadn’t understood the Danish words, the Germans were certainly left in no doubt about the sentiment, and they remained silent for some time. Then Meinicke gently began a conversation on more trivial matters, almost as though the incident had never happened. But Sneum would never forget the exchange, and he vowed that one day those former friends would have to apologize for what they had done. He recalled when that moment finally came: ‘Soon after the war, I was at a hunting-club dinner and they came up to my table and said: “We feel terrible about what we said that day. We didn’t know any better.” I forgave them.’ At the time, however, there was nothing Tommy could do but play up to his new reputation for treachery. ‘Some of the Germans took me around the port of Esbjerg not long after that incident, and I went drinking with Luftwaffe officers. I think many more Danish people despised me when they saw that.’

But eventually, after all the abuse and accusations, Tommy struck gold. ‘I got to know an Unteroffizier—a sergeant major—who was very fond of his beer; a big, friendly fellow. He used to go to a restaurant near the ferry port in Nordby. I went down there, bought him a drink and we started talking.’ After several bottles of beer and some meaningless chat, Tommy saw that his drinking partner was sufficiently relaxed to allow the conversation to be steered in a specific direction. What followed stuck in his mind for the rest of his life.

Sneum asked: ‘Are you afraid of the British coming here, bombing us, because of the installation?’

‘They’d never reach us,’ said the Unteroffizier with another swig. ‘We’d be able to see them coming from far away if they brought ships.’

‘Surely you can’t see them any further away than the normal range of binoculars,’ replied Sneum, as innocently as he could.

‘Yes, we can. We’ve got special technology,’ said the German, with a touch of arrogance.

‘Does that mean you can also see aircraft?’ asked Tommy, knowing he was taking a bigger risk with every question.

‘Naturally,’ replied the Unteroffizier casually.

Sneum thought he had better express relief at this news, though that was far from what he was feeling. ‘My heart was beating very fast after what I had been told,’ he said later. ‘I knew that the British had to try to put this new technology out of action. Because, if the Germans were to be warned by the installation at Fanoe about British planes coming their way, that same warning would immediately go out to all the stations in southern Denmark and northern Germany. Nothing would be able to come in unobserved.’

Chapter 2

TRAPPED

BY THE END of the summer of 1940, Else Sneum knew she was pregnant. She was only twenty-three, and her striking features were lit by a new excitement. The pretty brunette clearly felt ready for motherhood, though she was much less willing to accept some of her husband’s new habits. Hunting by day and boozing by night, Thomas Sneum seemed far less attentive than he had been before they were married. Else told him that his priorities would have to change now that she was expecting their first child.

When the couple had tied the knot on April 17 and walked down the steps of Copenhagen’s spectacular Radhus (Town Hall) to cheers from friends, Else had known that their life together would be far from perfect. The blend of Italian Renaissance and medieval Danish architecture had provided a dramatic setting for the ceremony; but with the Nazi