THE LAST RELIEF
When I reached New Zealand at the beginning of December 1916, I found
that the arrangements for the relief were complete. The New Zealand
Government had taken the task in hand earlier in the year, before I had
got into touch with the outside world. The British and Australian
Governments were giving financial assistance. The _Aurora_ had been
repaired and refitted at Port Chalmers during the year at considerable
cost, and had been provisioned and coaled for the voyage to McMurdo
Sound. My old friend Captain John K. Davis, who was a member of my
first Antarctic Expedition in 1907–1909, and who subsequently commanded
Dr. Mawson’s ship in the Australian Antarctic Expedition, had been
placed in command of the _Aurora_ by the Governments, and he had
engaged officers, engineers, and crew. Captain Davis came to Wellington
to see me on my arrival there, and I heard his account of the position.
I had interviews also with the Minister for Marine, the late Dr. Robert
McNab, a kindly and sympathetic Scotsman who took a deep personal
interest in the Expedition. Stenhouse also was in Wellington, and I may
say again here that his account of his voyage and drift in the _Aurora_
filled me with admiration for his pluck, seamanship, and
resourcefulness.
After discussing the situation fully with Dr. McNab, I agreed that the
arrangements already made for the relief expedition should stand. Time
was important and there were difficulties about making any change of
plans or control at the last moment. After Captain Davis had been at
work for some months the Government agreed to hand the _Aurora_ over to
me free of liability on her return to New Zealand. It was decided,
therefore, that Captain Davis should take the ship down to McMurdo
Sound, and that I should go with him to take charge of any shore
operations that might be necessary. I “signed on” at a salary of 1s. a
month, and we sailed from Port Chalmers on December 20, 1916. A week
later we sighted ice again. The _Aurora_ made a fairly quick passage
through the pack and entered the open water of the Ross Sea on January
7, 1917.
[Illustration: Ice Nomenclature: 1. Young Ice (Bay Ice of Scoresby)
in the Middle Distance]
[Illustration: 2. Light Pack]
Captain Davis brought the _Aurora_ alongside the ice edge off Cape
Royds on the morning of January 10, and I went ashore with a party to
look for some record in the hut erected there by my Expedition in 1907.
I found a letter stating that the Ross Sea party was housed at Cape
Evans, and was on my way back to the ship when six men, with dogs and
sledge, were sighted coming from the direction of Cape Evans. At 1 p.m.
this party arrived on board, and we learned that of the ten members of
the Expedition left behind when the _Aurora_ broke away on May 6, 1915,
seven had survived, namely, A. Stevens, E. Joyce, H. E. Wild, J. L.
Cope, R. W. Richards, A. K. Jack, I. O. Gaze. These seven men were all
well, though they showed traces of the ordeal through which they had
passed. They told us of the deaths of Mackintosh, Spencer-Smith, and
Hayward, and of their own anxious wait for relief.
All that remained to be done was to make a final search for the bodies
of Mackintosh and Hayward. There was no possibility of either man being
alive. They had been without equipment when the blizzard broke the ice
they were crossing. It would have been impossible for them to have
survived more than a few days, and eight months had now elapsed without
news of them. Joyce had already searched south of Glacier Tongue. I
considered that further search should be made in two directions, the
area north of Glacier Tongue, and the old depot off Butler Point, and I
made a report to Captain Davis to this effect.
On January 12 the ship reached a point five and a half miles east of
Butler Point. I took a party across rubbly and waterlogged ice to
within thirty yards of the piedmont ice, but owing to high cliffs and
loose slushy ice could not make a landing. The land-ice had broken away
at the point cut by the cross-bearings of the depot, but was visible in
the form of two large bergs grounded to the north of Cape Bernacchi.
There was no sign of the depot or of any person having visited the
vicinity. We returned to the ship and proceeded across the Sound to
Cape Bernacchi.
The next day I took a party ashore with the object of searching the
area north of Glacier Tongue, including Razorback Island, for traces of
the two missing men. We reached the Cape Evans Hut at 1.30 p.m., and
Joyce and I left at 3 p.m. for the Razorbacks. We conducted a search
round both islands, returning to the hut at 7 p.m. The search had been
fruitless. On the 14th I started with Joyce to search the north side of
Glacier Tongue, but the surface drift, with wind from south-east,
decided me not to continue, as the ice was moving rapidly at the end of
Cape Evans, and the pool between the hut and Inaccessible Island was
growing larger. The wind increased in the afternoon. The next day a
south-east blizzard was blowing, with drift half up the islands. I
considered it unsafe to sledge that day, especially as the ice was
breaking away from the south side of Cape Evans into the pool. We spent
the day putting the hut in order.
We got up at 3 a.m. on the 16th. The weather was fine and calm. I
started at 4.20 with Joyce to the south at the greatest possible speed.
We reached Glacier Tongue about one and a half miles from the seaward
end. Wherever there were not precipitous cliffs there was an even
snow-slope to the top. From the top we searched with glasses; there was
nothing to be seen but blue ice, crevassed, showing no protuberances.
We came down and, half running, half walking, worked about three miles
towards the root of the glacier; but I could see there was not the
slightest chance of finding any remains owing to the enormous
snowdrifts wherever the cliffs were accessible. The base of the steep
cliffs had drifts ten to fifteen feet high. We arrived back at the hut
at 9.40, and left almost immediately for the ship. I considered that
all places likely to hold the bodies of Mackintosh and Hayward had now
been searched. There was no doubt to my mind that they met their deaths
on the breaking of the thin ice when the blizzard arose on May 8, 1916.
During my absence from the hut Wild and Jack had erected a cross to the
memory of the three men who had lost their lives in the service of the
Expedition.
[Illustration: 3. Heavy Hummocked Pack]
[Illustration: 4. Hummocky Pack and Frozen Lead of Young-Ice]
Captain Davis took the ship northward on January 17. The ice conditions
were unfavourable and pack barred the way. We stood over to the western
coast towards Dunlop Island and followed it to Granite Harbour. No mark
or depot of any kind was seen. The _Aurora_ reached the main pack,
about sixty miles from Cape Adare, on January 22. The ice was closed
ahead, and Davis went south in open water to wait for better
conditions. A north-west gale on January 28 enabled the ship to pass
between the pack and the land off Cape Adare, and we crossed the
Antarctic Circle on the last day of the month. On February 4 Davis sent
a formal report to the New Zealand Government by wireless, and on
February 9 the _Aurora_ was berthed at Wellington. We were welcomed
like returned brothers by the New Zealand people.