Table of Contents

Foreword – Simon Yates 

Preface 

Part One: Peacetime

I The Assam Himalaya 

II The Approach 

III Our Troubles Begin 

IV Base Camp and Fever 

V Retreat 

VI The Zemu Gap—Failure 

VII The Zemu Gap—Success 

Part Two: Wartime

VIII Three Climbs in Wartime 

IX Albania 

X The Italians Collapse, The Germans Arrive 

XI Winter 

XII The Tide Turns 

XIII Arrival in North Italy 

XIV With the Gramsci Brigade 

XV The Nino Nannetti Division 

XVI The Belluno Division 

XVII At Zone H.Q.—The Liberation of Belluno

About the Author

Harold William ‘Bill’ Tilman (1898–1977) was among the greatest adventurers of his time, a pioneering mountaineer and sailor who held exploration above all else. Tilman joined the army at seventeen and was twice awarded the Military Cross for bravery during WWI.

After the war Tilman left for Africa, establishing himself as a coffee grower. He met Eric Shipton and began their famed mountaineering partnership, traversing Mount Kenya and climbing Kilimanjaro. Turning to the Himalaya, Tilman went on two Mount Everest expeditions, reaching 27,000 feet without oxygen in 1938. In 1936 he made the first ascent of Nanda Devi – the highest mountain climbed until 1950.

He was the first European to climb in the remote Assam Himalaya, he delved into Afghanistan’s Wakhan Corridor and he explored extensively in Nepal, all the while developing a mountaineering style characterised by its simplicity and emphasis on exploration.

It was perhaps logical then that Tilman would eventually buy the pilot cutter Mischief – not with the intention of retiring from travelling, but to access remote mountains. For twenty-two years Tilman sailed Mischief and her successors to Patagonia, where he crossed the vast ice cap, and to Baffin Island to make the first ascent of Mount Raleigh. He made trips to Greenland, Spitsbergen and the South Shetlands, before disappearing in the South Atlantic Ocean in 1977.