The mist covered mountains, and Dark as the Mine,
Mingulay,
heel ya ho,
volume growing,
Big Ingrid passed round her bottle of malt
and the party really got going.

The officer I.C had two birds on his knee,
one was a barmaid from Claggan
and a novice on trial got a big come on smile
from a stalker called Cecil from Laggan.

Then at twenty three ten,
from the cold icy Ben,
through snow that was heavily falling,
a figure appeared,
frozen tears in his beard,
with a tale that was truly appalling.

He stood there before us,
his moleskins all torn,
ice axe broken,
and one crampon missing,
and the only sound now in Cameron's Barn
was the tilly lamps soft, gentle hissing.

He said that a cornice
just simply gave way,
and started the unplanned decent
of him and his mates,
who were in dire straights
without the shelter of even a tent.

The weather he said
was the worst he had seen,
and he’d climbed in the Lakes and in Wales,
how he’d made it down
he never would know
through that nightmare
of ice, snow and gales.

Oh he’d done his best
as a chap like him would
for his chums left out there in the night.
He had bandaged their wounds
and set broken bones
then girded his loins for the fight.

Imagine the guts,
the sheer bloody pluck,
as he battled down through that white hell.
He lost count of the times
he almost gave up,
as he staggered and stumbled and fell.

He would gladly go back
even though he was lame.
He made it clear that this was his preference,
but if we felt
that he’d slow us down
he’d give us a six figure map reference.

Then one of the troops
took a pull from his dram
and said let’s just get this quite clear,
you are asking that we
go out in the cold
and leave all the women and beer?

Have you any idea of the effort it takes
to organise one of our parties,
of the money it cost
for the gin vodka and rum,
to say nothing
of spangles and smarties.

You can’t just barge in
at this time of night,
looking all bent and courageous.
I’m sure that I speak
for all of us here
when I say
your behaviour’s outrageous.

Now we’ve all heard your story,
please don’t think us unmoved,
our hearts have been touched ,
deep with sorrow.
But it’s Saturday night
And we don’t give a shite,
s o sod off
and come back tomorrow.

At this a great cheer
rang out round the barn
from all of the Kinloss team troopers,
and that was the last
that we saw of the bloke
from RAF MRT Leuchars.