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  From the start, it was clear that the five who had escaped were a young, fit, strong group, mainly of non-commissioned officers. The missing group comprised two older officers and three inexperienced Hong Kong Military Service Corps personnel. The survivors described very steep ground, abseils down cliffs that were more than 800 feet high, hacking their way through dense jungle, wading and swimming through deep pools and abseiling or jumping down waterfalls.

  Initially, the survivors had waited for the rear party, who were very slow but, without radios and lacking any formal contingency plans, the groups soon lost contact with each other. They had last seen the rear party at about 10,500 feet on 2 March. The survivors said that after about eight days of descent, they had come across a huge waterfall that they were unable to descend or pass. To escape the gully, they were forced to cut across very steep and slippery slabs covered in loose vegetation. Then they descended high-angled ground cover to the jungle below, where they spent several days wandering through uncharted jungle, getting progressively weaker and weaker. This group split again before they came across a village. It was 12 March – seventeen days after they first set foot in the gully for their planned eight-day descent! Even then, due to a national holiday, it was very difficult to get a message to the outside world of what had happened.

  The survivors were obviously glad to be out of the gully alive. They had described a terrible ordeal that they thought would never end. They had all been bitten by leeches and their feet were rotting after having been wet for most of the time. They had lost most of their equipment in the waterfalls and one had taken a serious fall whilst crossing the steep slabs to escape from the gully.

  All in all, it painted a bleak picture for the missing soldiers and a serious scenario for the rescuers! The Army expedition had set off to climb Kinabalu on 22 February, the survivors’ briefing finished at 0200 hours on 16 March. We were aware that we had no time to waste.

  Utilising Mike Elesmore’s knowledge of the area around Kinabalu, and taking into account the fact that there had been, thus far, no search effort on the mountain itself, Lieutenant-Colonel Tony Schumacher requested that the RAF deploy as soon as possible and concentrate on a search of the gully. The Malaysian Army also volunteered the services of approximately a hundred troops and Tony Schumacher indicated that, due to their familiarity with jungle operations, they search up both banks of the river which flows out of Low’s Gully.

  The town of Kota Kinabalu is at sea level. Our immediate plan was to split our group into two; a fast party would leave in four hours (at 0600 hours) to ascend the tourist route to a rest house at 11,000 feet. There they would spend the night acclimatising and resting before ascending to the 12,500-foot col, at the start of Low’s Gully the next day. They would then descend into the gully and make a reconnaissance of the ground. The second party would organise equipment and provide the second wave probing deeper into the gully.

  We intended to drive to 6,000 feet at the start of the tourist track. This would leave us 5,000 feet of ascent in five kilometres, usually an easy task for the RAF Mountain Rescue, but after travelling for more than twenty-four hours and having little rest during the previous two days, it was a daunting prospect! At this point Brigadier-General Hussain bin Yussof of the Malaysian Army offered to give us a lift to 11,000 feet in his helicopter. We accepted. In our jet-lagged condition we had forgotten the two golden rules of RAF Mountain Rescue troops – never rely on helicopters and only trust officers as a last resort! We paid the price in precious time being wasted.

  After three hours of flying round and round Mount Kinabalu at 2,000 feet in a Sikorsky with a bad hydraulic leak, we landed in a kampong (village) in the jungle. The mountain was swathed in thick cloud that showed no sign of lifting. However, the General had something else in mind for us. He took control of the village school (a windowless barn) which had a blackboard and ten chairs. The General’s aide gave some chalk to Corporal Graham Stamp and told him to teach the General all about search and rescue in the UK! Stamp started by describing the responsibilities of the police and where the RAF rescue coordination centres and coastguard fitted into the picture. He then described the UK’s voluntary system of mountain rescue and the part played by the RAF MRTs and the SAR helicopter flights. With much prompting from the General, Stampy then talked about training and call-outs and reaction times and equipment. Meanwhile we sat in total disbelief at this complete waste of time whilst the General’s aide was taking copious notes. It turned out that his intention was to glean as much information as possible from us, with a view to arranging a more formal approach to SAR in Malaysia.

  After a couple of hours of SAR lessons by Stampy the weather had cleared enough to take off again. Unfortunately, the hill was still in cloud but we eventually managed to persuade them to drop us off, this time near a road where we managed to scrounge a lift to the Park HQ and the start of the tourist track. There we were allocated a guide and two porters to help carry some of the ropes. We were off up the track with 5,000 foot of ascent and five kilometres ahead of us. Despite lack of sleep and heavy bags we made good time and made it to the Pana Laban rest house at 11,200 feet about two hours after nightfall – and only eighteen hours after our arrival in the country. We ate well and slept soundly in a rat-infested shed salubriously named Burlington House.

  First light on 18 March and we started the climb up through the mist, across easy-angled slabs to the col at 12,500 feet. We fixed rope across these slabs to facilitate both descent and to mark the route for reinforcements. On the other side of the col we had our first breathtaking sight of Easy Valley which leads directly down to Low’s Gully. The top of Easy Valley was made up of wide slabs. In Jim Smith’s words, “Easy Valley was like a monstrously huge, black and foreboding amphitheater. The dark and domineering walls reaching for thousands of feet above your head made you feel claustrophobic. Whoever gave Easy Valley its name obviously had a sense of humour!” We could see some of the route ahead. After the slabs, it went less steeply through a vegetated section to a point known as the Lone Tree at about 10,500 feet. After that the route dropped steeply out of sight. From the col, we picked our way carefully across steep, slippery slabs fixing some rope as we went. Then we hacked through thick vegetation, then over the tops of waterfalls that flowed to unseen drops. At the Lone Tree we made a couple of abseils until we could see, through the trees and mist, some bigger cliffs below. Carefully we inched closer to the slippery edge but from the top it was obvious that longer ropes were required. It was getting dark and we decided to leave equipment at the Lone Tree and ascend, over the 12,500 foot col, and back to the rest house at 11,200 feet. Later that night the other team members arrived from Park HQ with 500-feet ropes, jumars and other equipment. We spent another night in the rat shed and on the floor of the rest house which became our forward operating base for the next week.

  Next day, before first light, our second group went up to the col and down to the Lone Tree. In order to maintain communications it was necessary to leave a radio link at the col and this was maintained throughout the search. The second group set up an advanced base at the Lone Tree, then fixed ropes down an initial 150-feet vertical section. A trail which had been hacked through the jungle by the Army expedition led to another 150-foot drop, then a series of 500-foot near-vertical sections. The first two volunteers, Bren Dunn and John Roe, abseiled down through waterfalls and searched below these cliffs but found nothing.

  The time was now pushing on and the mist had given way to heavy rain. Not wanting to be caught in the gully in a flood, the pair started to jumar up the ropes. Going up through the waterfall couldn’t be avoided and was really cold, wet and strenuous. The whole group eventually made it back to the Lone Tree, which was located in relative safety, on top of a small ridge. They had a damp bivouac with rain and mist as companions.

  The rain continued overnight and throughout the next day. The corrie at the top of the gully acted like a gargantuan funnel, gathering water and sending
it cascading down the waterfall sections which were now flowing too fast to be descended. The group climbed back to the rest house where Alister held a briefing and decided that, while the rain continued, we could not descend past the Lone Tree. Meanwhile, on the northern side of the mountain, the Malaysian Army helicopters had managed to make some searches of the lower part of the gully. They estimated that they had searched up to approximately 7,000 feet.

  On 22 March the weather improved slightly. Over the past days, we had discussed likely scenarios and most of us were of the opinion that the missing soldiers had probably had an accident, perhaps whilst descending one of the cliffs, due to an anchor failure or a fall on the steep slimy slabs. We envisaged that the survivors of the accident had become trapped, unable to ascend the vertical cliffs or to descend further. We had additional doubts about their chances of surviving after twenty-eight days out in poor weather with less than eight days’ rations. Indeed, after our initial forays down the gully, some of the rescuers made the judgement that they could not justify the risk to their own lives and they decided that unless there was some sign of survivors, they would not go below the Lone Tree.

  We had a group planning meeting and decided that we would use four rescuers who would take all the available rope to make a fast lightweight push as far down the gully as possible. The rope would be left in place all the way down the gully to allow the four to escape by jumaring back up and it would also allow additional manpower to descend if required. We would have a group of six at the Lone Tree ready to descend if necessary and a further six at the col and the rest house who manned the radio link and acted as reinforcements.

  We all knew that it would be a mammoth task to get casualties from the gully. The prospect of attempting to evacuate any injured up the vertical cliffs and across the col at 12,500 feet was unthinkable, and we decided that when we found the missing party we would attempt to stabilise them where they were while an evacuation route downwards was being prepared. We hoped to get the casualties down to a location suitable for a helicopter lift.

  There were plenty of volunteers willing to make the descent and it was decided that Jimmy Clethero, Graham Stamp, John Roe and I would provide the correct level of technical climbing abilities and first aid skills. It was also important to leave personnel at the top who were capable of organising and effecting the rescue. Ten of us left at first light, making the ascent over the col and down to the Lone Tree in record time. Four of us then continued down, past the previous low point, fixing rope as we went. Fifteen hundred feet below the Lone Tree we found a bivouac site with RLC (Royal Logistics Corps) marked out on top of a slab in pebbles.

  We continued as fast as the steep ground and slimy rock would allow. As we descended, we found other signs of the passage of the Army expedition: sardine tins and wrappers, old campfires, bivouac sites and, occasionally we followed tracks where the moss had been scrapped off the rocks of the gully bed. The last of the rope was used up just as darkness fell. We had descended to about 8,200 feet at a point where the gully had narrowed to an immensely deep gorge approximately 100 feet wide, and with walls that seemed to us to be thousands of feet high. We made a bivouac on a relatively flat rock in the middle of the river and spent a cold, noisy night, too tired to worry about the danger of floods.

  We needed more rope to continue safely and we drew straws to decide who would ascend part-way to meet the troops bringing down more rope and who would be the lucky couple to wait behind and descend further when the ropes arrived. Jimmy Clethero and Stampy drew the short straws, so before first light the next day, they set off at high speed back up the gully to meet Jim Smith and Carl Van Der Lee who had descended from the Lone Tree with ropes. They arrived back at the bivouac site with 500-feet of rope at 1300 hours and John Roe and I immediately set off down. Speed was of the essence – not only for the casualties’ sake but for our own safety – we were in a narrow gorge thousands of feet below a huge catchment area and if the rain started again (which was most likely), we would be in a most precarious situation.

  We carried nothing but the rope, a radio and a head torch each, fixing ropes only on the steepest sections to allow an escape to be made. In the interests of speed we were forced to wade sections of the river and to make detours into the vegetated sides. It was very cloudy right down to the gully bed but en-route we found several clues, campsites and tracks. However, there was nothing to suggest that the missing soldiers were in trouble – the campsites had been left tidy (apart from a few Hong Kong sardine tins). We found a climbing rope which had been cut into two and left in place over two steep drops for abseiling, again there was no sign of problems.

  By 1615 hours we had descended a further 2,000 feet and had used up all the rope. The gully continued ahead for a few hundred metres with some small drops before what sounded like a big waterfall out of sight round a corner. We were now at an altitude of about 6,300 feet and the Malaysian Army helicopters had claimed to have searched up the gully to 7,000 feet. We came to the conclusion that the missing soldiers had made it down to the jungle, which was not far below us. After blowing whistles and shouting, we reluctantly decided to turn uphill. After the decision was made to turn back we went fast, there was not much daylight left and we had lots of jumaring, hauling, wading, scrambling and climbing over slimy rocks and boulders before reaching the relative comfort of the slab. We debriefed Alister, utilising two separate radio links at the Lone Tree and the col, and then collapsed into sleep, no longer caring about the continuous roar of the river.

  Next morning dawned grey and overcast, threatening rain. The four of us at the slab awoke stiff and cold but we had some 2,500 feet of slipping, sliding, scrambling and jumaring to ascend to the safety of the Lone Tree. Then, together with the remaining team members, we continued up the last 2,000 feet, over the col and down to the rest house.

  With the information gleaned by the search of the gully, Tony Schumacher decided to withdraw the troops from the gully and to concentrate the search on the lower section from the jungle up to the base of a big waterfall. British Army Paras and SAS troops had been brought into the area and were in the process of making a reconnaissance flight, with a Malaysian Army helicopter, to find an insertion point near the waterfall. During a low-level fly-past, a British troop on board the helicopter spotted the message “SOS” laid out on a slab in pebbles. After another pass, the missing soldiers were spotted. Miraculously, after thirty days in the gully, all five were still alive!

  They had started to abseil down a steep section but didn’t have enough rope to reach the jungle floor and were trapped in a relatively safe position but unable to go up or down. The previous day John Roe and I must have stopped only a few hundred metres away from them! Although it was cold in the misty gully, they had some shelter under an overhanging rock and plenty of water. During their ordeal, they had made several dangerous attempts at escape but the steep, vegetated terrain around them thwarted their efforts. They had managed to make less than eight days’ rations last eighteen days. There was no natural food available and they were faced with eating medical supplies – throat pastilles indigestion pills etc.

  As a result, they were malnourished, extremely weak and mildly hypothermic, but thankfully still alive. Some rations and a medic were dropped off for the casualties but due to the terrain and weather, they couldn’t be evacuated by helicopter until the next day.

  Postscript: In 1998, a strong and very well equipped British expedition, including one of the young survivors of the Army expedition of 1994, returned to Mount Kinabalu and made a successful descent of the whole gully.

  Accident – Empress Hut

  Hamish MacInnes

  In 1955, when I was climbing down near the base of New Zealand’s South Island spine in the Darran Range, I met a colleague whom I hadn’t seen for years. This was John Hammond who, together with Chris Bonington and me, had started his winter climbing career in Glencoe in Scotland. I arranged to meet John a week or so later at the Hermitage Ho
tel. But when I arrived, I discovered that John and his companion had fallen on the western side of Mount Cook and their bodies had not been recovered.

  Some time later, when making a solo attempt of Mount Cook from the other side, I reached the Haast hut late one evening. There was no-one there and though it was possible to get a weather report from the Hermitage using the hut’s two-way radio, which had a hand cranking generator for transmitting, I realised that I was too late for this. After a spartan meal of dry biscuits and a can of beans, I snuggled into my sleeping bag, resolved for an early night as I intended being off by three am.

  I can’t say why I later got out of my warm bag and switched on the radio receiver. It was operated by a spring switch, so that it couldn’t be left on, thereby running the battery down. During those few seconds that I depressed the switch there was a crackle of static, then the weak hum of a carrier wave. A faint voice, but it was definitely a voice, crackled from the small speaker.

  “Accident – Empress hut, urgent . . .” Then there was silence.

  I was dumbfounded. With those few words the sender had imparted to me his desperation. But had I been hearing things? No, I told myself, I was quite awake. I wasn’t conscious of any telepathic message, but still, for no apparent reason I had put the radio on although I knew there could be no possible traffic on that frequency. But as I pondered, I wondered why the message was so brief, why wasn’t it completed? I sat astride the generator seat of the transmitter and started to hand crank the generator. It had a double handle which required quite an effort to turn to give sufficient power to operate the set. Usually two people use the transmitter, one to give the message and the other to provide power via the treadmill, or rather the hand-mill. I didn’t get any response from the mystery operator. However, I continued and somewhat out of breath, managed at last to contact the Hermitage and told them of the weird message. I also said that I was quite convinced that something terrible had happened on the other side of the mountain at the Empress hut. Fortunately, they believed me.