Fri 19 Dec
Return Fort William a.m.

By Sunday, 21st he had not returned and the manageress informed the police. They went straight to Steall, where they found no occupants but they did find Gray's rucksack and personal belongings.

For three days they searched in the vicinity of the hut but on the 23rd there was a telephone call from a man called Wood in Oban, Argyll, who said he had talked to Gray at 3.20 p.m. on Wednesday, 17th on Carn Mor Dearg. Gray had said he was going to walk round to the summit of Ben Nevis and then down to Steall. He appeared to be tired and at that time there was only half an hour of daylight left.

In view of this and the distance he was from Steall when last seen, the police thought that he must still be high on the mountain, but they were hampered in their efforts to extend the search by snow which fell on the night of the 23rd, bringing the snow-line down to 1,000 feet. They searched the lower slopes for three days but without success.

RAF Kinloss were called in but they too were unsuccessful. Snow lay two to three feet deep above a thousand feet and all tracks had long since been obliterated. It seemed that Gray's body, like that of the boy who went up from Achintee, would never be found.

Seven years passed, and Alexander Kennedy of Achintee and another man were shepherding in Coire Leis. It was September 11th with all the snow gone and the screes and boulder fields bare. The men were following the lowest line of the cliffs at the back of the North-East Buttress when, about three hundred yards from the Carn Mor Dearg arête, they came on some bones. Had the finders been anyone else but farmers, these might have been mistaken for those of sheep, but Kennedy thought otherwise, and he took them down to Fort William.

Investigation confirmed that the remains were human, and further search revealed more scattered over a wide area. Some were severely fractured. It was obvious that the victim had fallen over a cliff from somewhere in the region of the summit, probably from the convex slope where so many were to fall in ensuing years. His dentist identified these remains as those of Lieutenant Gray.

The fact that bodies can lie unremarked for so long demonstrates the vast difficulties of search in mountain country. Searches, as carried out by the RAF, Continue to page 12