(which was far too big and had to be padded) I had the same thrill that I used to have in the old days when the Army gave me a new and more powerful motor-cycle than the one I'd had before. At first I was frightened as I went over the edge, watching my lowerer with wide eyes, walking backwards, wanting to clutch the rope, swinging, bumping - I seemed all angles; elbows, hips, knees hitting the rock first. But after a few feet I got the idea, and then it was merely a matter of running down faster than they let the rope out. If a ledge came you crashed backwards through the bilberries and over again, a slither as you found your feet and got the wall in the right place under them, feet and hands straddling in front so that they should hit the corners and the bulges instead of one's knees and elbows. I went down faster than the others because I wanted to locate the sheep and stop the men descending on it.

There was an atmosphere of loneliness and un-feeling as I went out of sight of the lowering ledge: moving all the time down the strange rocks and bilberry chutes where perhaps no one had ever been before. It was far easier than I had imagined. Also more broken, so I stopped worrying about getting back. One had imagined a great unclimbable face with no features. But much of it was rotten although I didn't knock anything down and I don't think my companions did at this time. I can't remember. The concentration was so great I couldn't even think who was with me. Once I shouted to ask how much rope I had left, and to my amazement it was 250 feet. I thought I had used the five hundred already.

So I went on and on, passing the level of the Great Terrace, seeing someone below (and seemingly, fairly close) on Avalanche, and then coming suddenly on a kind of rocky bank, which may once have been a sloping grass ledge, now denuded of grass, earthy, and covered with droppings.

I looked right and, to my horror and astonishment, saw two sheep about thirty feet away, standing on the sloping floor of Central Gully, with the crux about fifteen feet below. This crux is a rotten overhang and had been climbed only about four times - by men who were either six feet seven or legends. What chance would I have if I fell below it? There wouldn't be enough rope to lower me (only enough to hang me) I thought, and this was only too true; there were about twenty feet left when I stopped; nor did I think there were enough men topside to pull me back by force - not over the overhang of Central Gully.

I moved until I was just above the crux and, theoretically, cutting off their retreat that way; warned the others, and they came down to me left. The sheep were very restive now with the odd pebble coming down, boots scraping, and shouts.

One seemed stronger than the other. I guessed they were an old ewe and a last-year's lamb. They were of similar size but the younger had smaller horns. I looked at the horns dubiously and I felt the void behind my back. I saw us all leaping over the edge, like affectionate lemmings, lacked in each other's arms.

When the men arrive, they cut off any retreat along the traverse (by which the sheep and I had arrived from the original ledge). I told them we might lose one, but we could only do our best. They each picked a beast and - making sure our ropes were slack enough for manoeuvres, but as tight as possible in the face of that awful plunge to the screes below - we moved forward up the sloping floor of the gully. I was slightly up the right wall, where they might make a dash for it if they felt like a Wall of Death.

I prayed they wouldn't charge while I was still on small holds. But they didn't come Continue to Page 7