Conditions continued good and frosty. They camped by the shore of Llyn Ogwen with the ground frozen so hard they had considerable difficulty driving in tent pegs - and the men, being Physical Fitness, led at a terrific pace on their first uphill walk, with Lees plodding in the rear, and came in with the positions reversed but with Lees going at the same speed as he had been at the outset...

Conditions were ideal for elementary instruction in snow climbing and the P.T.I.s were taken to safe, snow-filled gullies where they were taught to glissade competently (before ever they did a snow climb) and, better still, to fall and then to stop themselves with the axe as brake.

Then the weather broke and they learnt to rock climb in the thaw. One day (restored to my pedestal now that I had learnt to climb in nails) I went round to help instruct and was given two young fit men, both large, both boxers, both handsome and oozing masculinity. I was to take them up the Milestone Buttress. Novices, they were surprised and resentful when they realised the situation. Naturally I had been given the two best climbers and Lees had kept those who needed more supervision for himself. You could see these two thinking it out. In the end they decided to humour us and play it off the cuff.

Probably the Milestone Direct was the route I knew best of all, because, until such cliffs became too crowded, we often took novices here for their first climb. The route had something of every elementary problem but with big holds and big stances. You had the feel of being on a big mountain without excessive exposure. But although it was easy, there was a best way of meeting every problem. I knew these ways but my men didn't. They suffered, at first physically (boxers, like pianists, become petulant if they graze their hands) then mentally. Bewildered by the first pitch, they became in turn angry, ashamed and, at the last, surly. I wasn't asked to climb with that course again; Lees said I was bad for morale.

By working very hard through that winter, he managed to train the N.C.O.s, run the Valley team, and see me, although I was usually mixed up with the work. I knew that is I wanted to be with him, I had to take the course or the team as well. On Christmas Day I had the whole team up to the hostel for dinner; on New Year's Eve I joined the course for a moonlit snow climb of Snowdon, and a week later I was wakened in the early hours of the morning to find the sergeants grouped in the common-room, pale and subdued and exhausted: fresh from their first aircraft crash. A Washington had come down at Wrexham. There was a strange smell in the room and they were all suffering slightly from shock.

They had spent the day shepherding forty R.A.F. cadets from Cranwell up and down Snowdon by the 'easy' ways. This had been against Lees' better judgement but he had no say in the matter. They reached the summit from Llanberis without incident, and from there they were to descend by the Watkin Path to Nantgwynant. Between the summit and Bwlch y Saethau (the Pass of the Arrows) there were several hundred feet of steep hard névé interspersed with crusted snow, often the two conditions together.

The Cranwell men had no axes.

Lees stationed his course among the cadets and went down first, cutting steps as large as possible. It took him two and a half hours to cut down the slope. Surprisingly, he lost no cadets. After a meal he took his men to the Royal Hotel in Capel Curig for a much-needed drink, and there a telephone call came through at 9.50 p.m. telling them to
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