Meanwhile I was left alone at Hut Point, where blizzards raged periodically with the usual creakings and groanings of the old hut.  Foolishly I accompanied my companions, when they started for Cape Evans, as far as the bottom of Ski Slope.  When I left them I found I could not keep my feet on the slippery snow and ice patches, and I had several nasty falls, in one of which I gave my shoulder a twist.  It was this shaking combined with the rather desperate conditions which caused a more acute state of illness and sickness than I had experienced for some time.  Some of those days I remained alone at Hut Point I was too weak to do more than crawl on my hands and knees about the hut.  I had to get blubber from the door to feed the fire, and chop up seal-meat to eat, to cook, and to tend the dogs, some of whom were loose, while most of them were tied in the verandah, or between the hut door and Vince’s Cross.  The hut was bitterly cold with only one man in it:  had there not been some morphia among the stores brought down from Cape Evans I do not know what I should have done.

The dogs realized that they could take liberties which they would not have dared to do in different circumstances.  They whined and growled, and squabbled amongst themselves all the time, day and night.  Seven or eight times one day I crawled across the floor to try and lay my hands upon one dog who was the ringleader.  I was sure it was Dyk, but never detected him in the act, and though I thrashed him with difficulty as a speculation, the result was not encouraging.  I would willingly have killed the lot of them just then, I am ashamed to say.  I lay in my sleeping-bag with the floor of the hut falling from me, or its walls disappearing in the distance and coming back:  and roused myself at intervals to feed blubber to the stove.  I felt as though I had been delivered out of hell when the relief party arrived on the night of April 14.  I had been alone four days, and I think a few more days would have sent me off my head.  Not the least welcome of the things they had brought me were my letters, copies of the Weekly Times, a pair of felt shoes and a comb!

Atkinson’s plan was to start on April 7 over the old sea-ice which lay to the south and south-west of us:  he was to take with him Wright, Keohane and Williamson, and they wanted to reach Butter Point, and thence to sledge up the western coast.  If the sea-ice was in, and Campbell was sledging down upon it, they hoped to meet him and might be of the greatest assistance to him.  Even if they did not meet him they could mark more obviously certain depots, of which he had no knowledge, left by our own geological parties on the route he must follow.  As I have already mentioned, these were on Cape Roberts, off Granite Harbour, and on Cape Bernacchi, north of New Harbour:  there was also a depot at Butter Point, but Campbell already knew of this.  They could also leave instructions to this effect at points where