The surviving Black Brother, Gared, from the prologue of A Game of Thrones is apparently the deserter who is beheaded in the beginning of the book.
But how did he manage to get to Winterfell from the other side of The Wall? Or did the show throw me off track and in the book there weren't any survivors, so the deserter is someone else?
Answer
The Wall is there primarily to keep the wildlings from crossing in large numbers (in current times, at least). It has never stopped individuals from crossing, if they know where to look.
In the books, it is mentioned later on in the series that there are many fortifications along the Wall, but over time many of them have become disused and abandoned. Coverage is not what it used to be.
Keep in mind that even the Direwolf made it from beyond the Wall, so climbing over the top is clearly not the only option.
In A Storm of Swords it is mentioned that there are four ways to get from one side of the Wall to the other (aside from being let through the gates by the Black Brothers): you can climb it, attempt to cross the Bay of Seals by boat, descend into the ravines to the west of the Shadow Tower, or use the array of tunnels underneath (such as Gorne's Way).
Edit: I just re-read the part where Bran, Hodor and the Reeds cross the Wall under the Nightfort. There is a gate that is accessible to any sworn Brother, and it is certainly possible that the deserter somehow either knew of this, or found it.
In the TV show, the younger ranger survives, but in the book Gared the older ranger survives. Since the execution scene is from Bran's perspective and Bran is less concerned with who the ranger is, we are not given his name but the descriptions match up enough to show that it is Gared.
Prologue
Gared did not rise to the bait. He was an old man, past fifty, and he had seen the lordlings come and go.
...
Gared had spent forty years in the Night's Watch, man and boy, and he was not accustomed to being made light of.
...
"I've had the cold in me too, lordling." Gared pulled back his hood, giving Ser Weymar a good long look at the stumps where his ears had been. "Two ears, three toes, and the little finger off my left hand."
...
Gared glared at the lordling, the scares around his ear holes flushed red with anger where Master Aemon had cut the ears away.
At the end of the prologue, Royce is dead and Will is dying. Gared was waiting with the horses so it is more possible that he survived than the others.
Bran
But the man they found bound hand and foot to the holdfast wall awaiting the king's justice was old and scrawny, not much taller than Robb. He had lost both ears and a finger to frostbite, and he dressed all in black, the same as a brother of the Night's Watch, except that his furs were ragged and greasy.
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