The Hornet's Sting (34 page)

The brothers then rejected another short route, from Helsingoer to Helsingborg, because they feared that police patrols would pick them up immediately. After further failed attempts on a short route between Sletten and Rydeback, a crisis meeting was called with the Princes, who had been monitoring the situation with mounting frustration. Nordentoft, Lunding and Gyth met Christophersen and Sneum in the Jaegersborg Kaserne, the military barracks in Copenhagen. Clearly looking for sympathy, Christophersen documented all the difficulties he had experienced.

‘I’ve been giving this some thought,’ said Lunding at last. ‘I recommend that you try to make your crossing from Stevns to Falsterbo.’

‘It’s too far,’ scoffed Sneum, ‘and takes them rt across the southern mouth of the Oeresund. We all know how unpredictable the weather and the currents can be down there.’

Christophersen seemed to resent the interruption. He pointed out that it would be his life on the line, not Tommy’s, and that Danish Intelligence were the experts in this sort of thing. He and Thorbjoern had vowed to abide by the recommendations of the professionals, and try to trek from Stevns to Falsterbo. Sneum shook his head in dismay. The route lay further south than anything he had been prepared to contemplate. Both points were sparsely populated, which was an advantage, but Falsterbo lay some twenty-three kilometers across the ice from Stevns. They might avoid being spotted; but they might also never see anyone again. The journey would be long and they would be exposed to the worst of the elements. To succeed, the brothers would require extreme powers of physical endurance and mental strength in bitter temperatures.

Sneum doubted the Christophersens had what it took, because they had seemed quite happy to turn back before. And even if they did have the necessary qualities and appetite for what they were about to attempt, they would require luck to find a way through. Tommy didn’t want the Christophersens crawling back yet again, so the following day he took Oxlund quietly aside and said: ‘Kaj, I want you to go with them. Tell Sigfred you want to join the British forces too.’

Oxlund looked surprised, then expressed scepticism that any of them would make it.

‘Maybe you’re right,’ acknowledged Sneum. ‘But I need you to make sure they go through with it this time. If the ice starts to break up and you have to turn back, just make sure you shoot the bastards before you come home. Then put them under the water if you can. It’ll buy us some time. If you all get across alive, you can always come back to Copenhagen later, once you’ve delivered them to the British Legation in Stockholm. Remember, Kaj, you can come home. They must not.’

Oxlund accepted his mission, despite the risk. ‘He was very courageous about it,’ Tommy recalled. But the time was also right for Kaj to move on. His marriage to Tulle and his business affairs were in tatters. Life in Denmark could never be the same again for him. A fresh start and a direct shot at the Germans from a new base in Britain probably sounded attractive; although the prospect of killing fellow Danes in cold blood must have been far less appealing. Tommy, though, felt such ruthlessness was now essential to eliminate the security threat that the brothers had become. Whether Oxlund was prepared to carry out the gruesome task, if it came to the crunch, was another matter. As he prepared to leave Denmark, doubtless he hoped that he would never have to find out. ‘He was soft at heart,’ admitted Sneum.

Duus Hansen’s recollection of Kaj’s mission was chillingly matter-of-fact: ‘Sneum’s opinion was that the two brothers didn’t wish to leave the country. Therefore it was decided that Sneum’s landlord, Mr Oxlund, should accompany them over the ice to Sweden and make sure that they would get over, or in any case that they would not come back.’

O
N THE EVENING OF TUESDAY, 3 March 1942, Kaj Oxlund called his younger sister, Gerda Tapdrup Nielsen,ct shot athome she shared with her husband Svend just outside Copenhagen.

‘I’m going to Jutland for a few weeks,’ he said. ‘Huge amounts of firewood are going cheap. I think I can make some money.’

‘A few weeks?’ Gerda was already suspicious. ‘Why so long?’

‘It’ll probably take me that long to get into the business,’ he explained after an awkward pause.

Oxlund’s sister wasn’t satisfied. ‘By then people won’t need firewood,’ she pointed out. ‘It’ll be spring.’

‘Then I’ll have to work more quickly,’ replied Kaj.

‘Where can we write to you?’ Gerda was worried now.

‘You can’t,’ her brother said. ‘I’ll be moving around. Look, I’m sorry if it all sounds a bit impulsive. I just wanted to let you know I love you.’

When Gerda told Svend about the conversation, he agreed it had been a strange one. It was almost as if Kaj were saying goodbye for ever. Things hadn’t felt right for a while, and this latest exchange added to their concerns. They thought Kaj had made some money in the spring of 1941 from a business connected to the Danish railways, believing he had been paid a handsome commission for one big transaction. They assumed he had been living off that success ever since, because he certainly hadn’t been in regular work for a while.

The next day, at around 1.00 p.m., Kaj phoned again, this time from Copenhagen city center. He told his sister he wanted to give her some clothes, which he would deposit in a locker at Noerreport’s train station. He promised to send her the receipt in a letter, together with some cheques and bank documents he wanted Svend to look after, since banking was his brother-in-law’s field of expertise.

No doubt the Christophersen brothers were making similar arrangements with their father, a gardener named Johannes Ruder, and their mother, Anne Katrine. Sigfred and Thorbjoern, like Oxlund, were by now focused on the challenge they faced. Kaj must have told the brothers that his only motive for coming with them was to reach England in order to fight alongside the Allied forces. Irrespective of whether Sigfred and Thorbjoern entirely trusted his motives, they had little choice but to comply. They knew he was a close friend of Sneum, and to freeze him out of their plan would only increase the danger they faced.

Late on the afternoon of Thursday 5 March, Tommy prepared a meal for the trio in Kaj’s flat. He sent them on their way with one last piece of advice. ‘Remember to tie yourselves together with rope just before you step out onto the ice. If one of you goes under, the other two can pull him back out if you’re quick enough. Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that. Keep cool heads and stay together. That way you can still succeed, even on the route you’ve chosen. Good luck.’

The caretaker, Hans Soetje, saw Oxlund and ‘The Russian’ leave at six o’clock in the evening, while Sneum remained in the flat, to pack away and remove the possessions they had left behind. Joining up with Thorbjoern, Kaj and Sigfred travelled forty-five minutes by rail from Copenhagen to Koege. There, they changed trains for a half-hour journey to the quaint village station of Klippinge on the Stevns peninsula. The trio stepped onto the snow and trudged enviously past sng cottages with thatched roofs. Soon they hit an open road and began the two-kilometer hike towards a wood between Gjorslev and Raby. Deep inside that wood they had earlier concealed the sledge and supplies that would go with them on the journey to Sweden. Men going to the North Pole could not have prepared more thoroughly. On the sledge were a tent, blankets, sheets for camouflage, an air-pillow and mattresses upon which to rest the following day, some safety rope and an axe. Their provisions consisted of large amounts of food and drink, cigarettes and even warm coffee in Thermos flasks. Each man was to carry his own length of rope and a long staff to help vault across any cracks in the ice. If anyone fell into the water and had to be pulled out, he knew extra woollen socks and dry underwear would be available to aid his recovery. They all put on white overalls so that their darker clothing wouldn’t show up against the ice and snow. Now they were almost ready.

Between ten and eleven o’clock, they simply waited, taking shots of brandy for warmth and courage. The smell of the alcohol would also lend credence to the usual cover story—that they were only breaking curfew in some sort of drunken prank. Any close examination of the sledge by Danish police or German soldiers would soon show they were lying, but they reckoned it was better to be well prepared than to give extra credence to an alibi they might never need to use. They checked the equipment and waited for the nearest church bells to sound the hour. By eleven the local population had put up their shutters for the night, and the men were ready to move. All the team’s money was given to Thorbjoern, who put it in the inside pocket of his overcoat. Oxlund carried a pistol, though he didn’t tell his accomplices.

They crept out into the flat, barren fields, pulling the sledge behind them. They plotted a course for the coast that allowed them to sweep north of the picture-postcard village of Holtug and join a lonely lane to the sea unobserved. Even in summer, this part of the Stevns peninsula is a desolate place. In winter, the cold expanse of land and ice is enough to chill the soul. Encouraging each other, they pressed on through the snow and completed the last three kilometers to the cliffs, where they found the steep path down to the pebble beach. Getting the sledge down the slope must have been tricky, but then they faced a more daunting challenge. It was time to step out into oblivion. The rope they had packed stayed coiled under some extra clothing on the sledge. Perhaps they decided it was sufficiently close in case of emergency.

On a clear day, it is just possible to see Falsterbo’s buildings on the horizon. But on a dark night the distant village would have been invisible. Only courage, physical fitness and their compass could bring that world closer. They had just four kilometers of Swedish peninsula to aim for, far across the ice sheets. If they miscalculated by just a few degrees, they faced a hopeless walk on a treacherous course parallel to Sweden’s southern coast. In these conditions, they might never sight the land which lay so close.

As they took their first, creaking steps onto the sheet of white, it must have been hard for them to visualize what lay before them. Trusting their lives to a compass lit briefly by a shielded match, they set off on a north-easterly course and hoped for the best. Each man had to conquer the fear of not knowing whether the next step would be his last. But they were all sustained by a powerful survival instinct and a patriotic desire to free Denmark from Hitler’s grip. They would need all that mental strength and more.

Disaster struck for the first time after just two hours. The havge, piled high with their supplies, plunged straight through a weak point in the ice when the trio paused for an ill-advised rest. Thorbjoern, who had been pulling it, was first to be dragged into the freezing water, but soon all three were fighting for their lives, barely able to breathe in the lethal cold. Sigfred and Kaj managed to pull themselves out and find a fragile foothold on a slab of ice. Then they hauled Thorbjoern to safety too. All three men must have known they were now in a battle for their lives, yet a collective decision was taken to press on for Sweden.

Shaking uncontrollably, they marched straight into another weak point in the ice. Perhaps they had been undone by what remained of the shipping lane, through which the steel bows of huge vessels carved a temporary path each morning. The hostile temperatures returned each night to patch the ice-cutters’ work, but the newly formed ice didn’t always fully repair the gaping scars left by the ships. It was like walking into a minefield, and no one knew which way to turn. All three felt the freezing water assault their senses as they stumbled and scrambled for a firm footing on anything that still resembled a solid surface. A Swedish police report later stated: ‘During the hike over the ice towards the Swedish coast they fell into the water several times, losing their sledge in the process. They had suffered a lot from the cold wind, and towards the end they were nearly frozen to the ice.’ By now Thorbjoern was all but paralysed by the numbing cold. Nobly, Sigfred gave his younger brother his coat to try to increase his body temperature. Kaj was suffering gravely, too. At the Oeresund’s exposed confluence with the Baltic, the temperatures were so severe and the wind so merciless that each man would have felt himself drifting helplessly towards hypothermia. Water froze so quickly on their boots and clothes that it threatened to stick them to the ice like glue. It was a constant battle to keep themselves sufficiently free to place one foot in front of the other.

Still they refused to give up, though. And, as dawn broke, they sighted Falsterbo peninsula. Although salvation was almost within reach, Thorbjoern was fading rapidly. As they clung to life, they discarded their white overalls to make themselves more visible, and cried out for help as loudly as they could. Only the sound of splitting ice answered them. With each crack, the frozen platform beneath them began to disintegrate. Yet dry, dependable land wasn’t far away now.

Even closer lay another potential lifeline. A giant sheet of thicker-looking ice appeared before them. Then Sigfred saw a small fishing boat just a few hundred meters away, trying to reach them. It seemed that the boat could come no further because it was blocked by the mighty slab of ice. The fishermen were shouting and beckoning Sigfred to come to them instead, so he pushed on with what little strength he had left, and somehow summoned the energy to reach the more stable ice. Perhaps he thought the others would follow, but Thorbjoern had slumped onto the fracturing ice, unable to keep up. Kaj did manage to stagger onto the thicker ice, closer to the boat, but then he too fell to his knees. If he cried out for help, it appears that Sigfred failed to hear him. At any rate, he didn’t turn back, instead pushing on towards the boat.