soon as possible. The Tudor was a total wreck; there had been no sign of life, indeed, none could be expected after six nights at that altitude.

The team had a doctor with them: Flying Officer Ellis, who had done some walking. The N.C.O in charge was Flight-Sergeant Appleby, and Bottomer, Murphy, Whelan and Emmerson formed the nucleus.

Jack Emmerson was a man of considerable experience. He is small, wiry and hard, with the eyes of a visionary. He has inexhaustible patience, talks well and informatively when pressed, and keeps quiet and acts when there is something important to do. I remember the leader cursing on Tower Ridge when he couldn't get up the Great Tower and I had twice collapsed while giving him a shoulder. And Jack going up quietly while our backs were turned. He has climbed new peaks in the Himalayas, had done one of the classics on Mount Kenya, and explored in the Taurus of southern Turkey. He has great self-confidence, but he also inspires confidence in others. One feels that if others had the temerity to question his actions, Jack would say, "Yes, well, I think it's right," and continue his course, whether taking his wife on a winter search, climbing the Great Tower by moonlight, or working out a route up an unknown giant in Kurdistan.

On the afternoon of April 29th the team reached the airfield of Diyarbakir in eastern Turkey where they unloaded their Land-Rover and re-assembled it. (To load the `Rover into a Hastings it was necessary to remove the spare wheel and lower the windscreen, also to remove the tilt and its frame.) While the vehicle was being reassembled, another Hastings came in with the second Land-Rover. They arranged to borrow further transport, with drivers, from the Turkish authorities, and while these negotiations were being conducted the team were taken to an hotel where they were fed and rested.

At 2.0 a.m. on April 30th, the convoy left Diyarbakir to drive the 160 miles to Mount Suphan. Beside their own Land-Rovers they had two 15-hundredweight Dodge trucks and two jeeps borrowed from the Turkish Air Force. They were accompanied by a Turkish major as liaison officer, an N.C.O. fitter, and a warrant officer who was to act as interpreter.

The night was hot and uncomfortable as they travelled across flat open plains towards the mountains. The private motorist in Turkey - on the good roads - may travel fast and overtake the vehicle in front, or wait until the dust has settled. The team, travelling in convoy, had no choice but to keep their windows up, when they stifled in the heat, or to roll them down and suffer the dust. After sixty miles the road surface deteriorated alarmingly (and in the small hours, in the middle of nowhere, they came on a sign: `Austins of Henley').

With the dawn they came to a country of great gorges, and above them towered snow-covered mountains which must have been around the 10,000-foot mark. They were still fifty miles away when they came over a rise and had their first sight of their objective. The fact that they were so far away is significant; but even at that distance few of them had seen a mountain of this size before, other than from the air. The top of suphan was in cloud, but they could see from what lay below that the mountain had no distinction but that of size. It was like a gigantic and featureless Cairngorm and to those who were experienced the more potentially dangerous for that. It was extremely difficult to believe that this white mass was higher than the Dent Blanche (and more than three times the height of Cairngorm).

The mountain stood alone to the north of Lake Van. They reached the village of Nursencik on the northern shore of the lake at 4.30 p.m. They were now at 6,500 feet but would have preferred a base camp still higher; however, a reconnaissance showed that this would be impracticable at the moment and the whole party was accommodated in the village schoolhouse. A briefing was held that evening.

They knew that there were two tops to Suphan and that the Tudor was on the eastern summit. The crew of the aircraft which spotted the wreck had said that the most feasible route would be to climb to the western
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