Gregory and Snow then took the two novices in their party to the summit.

Different people went for help. One man, camping on top of the Ben, went down to another camp-site, half a mile below the Charles Inglis Clark hut, where he found Joe Brown and Don Whillans. These two collected their gear and went up to the top of the Ben. Don writes:
“...It was moonlight on the easy side, but black as hell on the face side. Joe and myself descended to the gap and started the traverse round the tower. It was, I remember, very cold and icy; we had several pitons in for safety. Half-way along the traverse we found the rope with an overhand knot placed over a spike. It was as tight as a bowstring and obvious that the girl was hanging free. We received no answer to our calls and presumed that she was dead or unconscious. We secured ourselves on the ledge, which was small and very icy and made several attempts to pull her up. This proved to be impossible. By this time there were lights in the bottom of the cwm; we directed them towards us, and it was Don Cowan, Ray Greenall, and two Scottish lads, one named Bob Hope... When they reached us it was only about one and a half hours to daylight. One had a duvet sac and a brew. We had this, and shortly after, it began to get light.

“As soon as we could see a little, Joe abseiled on a safety rope down to the girl on 150 feet of nylon. He failed to reach her, her rope (120 feet) had stretched so much that it was thinner and medium! [weight nylon rope]. Anyway, where the rope touched the rock, it was completely frozen to the face, and had to be broken off by laybacking on it.

“We then pulled him up, and between us, after a hell of a struggle, managed to pull her close to our ledge. Just then a party appeared at the top of Nevis and began to descend to the Tower; it was an SMC party. [Scottish Mountaineering Club].

“Leaving two men on the ledge, the rest of our party joined them at the top of the Tower and together they pulled her to the top....

“Just then the RAF arrived and a couple of them (the officer) descended to the gap (behind the Tower). They had a sledge [stretcher] and about twenty blokes on the top of Nevis. Once the gap had been crossed, it would be simpler to put her on the sledge and pull it straight up the snow slope on the top.“

There were now above twenty-five to thirty RAF and SMC personnel to finish the job. It was still early in the day, Whillans and Brown had been out since the previous evening doing work beyond the capabilities of most expert mountaineers. Had they not been there it is interesting to speculate who would have abseiled one hundred and fifty feet to free the frozen rope by laybacking - certainly not the man who told them, as they left, that they were rats deserting a sinking ship.

After the operation, criticism was levelled at the rescuers (in the main, and as is usual, by laymen) that too long was taken in recovering the body; that, had rescue come sooner, the girl might have been saved. In fact she probably died very shortly after the fall, since death was caused by constriction of the rope on the trunk, and it would not be likely that she lived for many minutes in that case. Since she didn't reply to any shouts, it is doubtful if she was conscious after the fall. Continue to Page 6