The Hornet's Sting by Mark Ryan

face before they did.
    ‘Sneum, tell me straight.’ Pedersen was just three months older than Tommy, and just a little more concerned about their predicament. ‘Can we make it?’
    ‘Fuck off,’ replied Tommy. ‘Of course we’ll make it.’
    ‘Seriously,’ persisted Kjeld, looking his friend directly in the eye. ‘What are our chances?’
    ‘Fifty-fifty,’ answered Tommy, and watched Pedersen’s face drain a little. ‘No, sixty-forty we’ll make it,’ he added for encouragement. But his attempt at optimism was no longer convincing or infectious.
    Neither pilot had flown for more than a year, not since the Nazis had invaded and grounded all Danish planes on 9 April 1940. Tommy hadn’t forgotten the roar of the German bombers over Avnoe early that morning, the surge of adrenalin as his adjutant opened sealed orders from King Christian and confirmed that Denmark’s sovereign territory was to be defended at all costs. He remembered the frantic sprint to his Hawker Nimrod fighter biplane, and the confusion when mechanics tried to block his path. He recalled the sheer frustration of being told that both the King and the Prime Minister had just announced their change of heart in a radio broadcast, and that Naval HQ in Copenhagen had confirmed the new order to offer no resistance. He had still tried to clamber into his Nimrod, and only gave up when a mechanic told him they had already put all the planes out of action. The shame of that night had never left him. Everything he had done since had been geared towards this moment, when he would beat the ban and fly again.
    Pedersen must have known how his friend was feeling, because he too had been a pilot in Fleet Air Arm. But that didn’t mean he was so desperate to remember how it felt to fly that he was ready to sacrifice his life for the privilege. This feeble-looking Hornet Moth was a far cry from a Hawker Nimrod. Besides, no one had ever attempted to fly a single-engine aircraft from Denmark to Britain. Pedersen, at least, knew his limitations. ‘I’m not going to fly her,’ he insisted. ‘You must do it.’
    ‘That pleases me,’ replied Sneum with a smile. ‘You’re not a very good pilot.’
    They had intended to wait for a night train to run along a nearby embankment and drown out the noise of the plane’s engine. But with all the upheaval of getting the plane out of the hangar they had missed their intended locomotive. They expected another train at midnight, so all was not lost; and anyway, Sneum was determined to press ahead even if that one didn’t come. He climbed into the cockpit through the port door and checked their luggage one last time. Behind him were several five-litre and ten-litre cans of petrol and the long tube with a funnel attached to one end. Folded neatly were spare shirts and smart naval uniforms for each man. The biscuits and the grape soda sat next to an axe. The broom handle with the two-meter-long white towel nailed to the end had been carefully placed to one side. And nestling innocently among these items were the two cases containing priceless undeveloped cine and still film of the German radar installation on Fanoe. Tucked away equally safely was the detailed report they had just compiled on the military bases where Danish troops were prepared to rise up against the German invaders on a signal from Churchill. To whet the appetites of the British further, Tommy and Kjeld had carefully documented key ports and ship movements around the Danish coast, to guide the bombing of German targets in their country.
    By Sneum’s own admission, he hadn’t been quite so thorough in obtaining a detailed map of their destination: ‘Our only map of England was one we had torn from an atlas.’
    Britain seemed a far-away place; and it felt like an eternity before they heard the midnight train—just a faint, regular rattle in the distance at first. Gradually it grew louder as the locomotive ate up more track and spewed out more steam. Here