They got back to the Eskers that same day and anxiously awaited the twilight of the morning to reveal the state of the new sea-ice which they had crossed on their outward journey.  To their joy some of it remained and they started to do the four miles between them and the old sea-ice.  For two miles they ran with the sail set:  then they had a hard pull, and some Emperor penguins whom they could see led them to suppose that there was open water ahead.  But they got through all right, and did ten miles for the day.  On Monday 22, “blizzard in morning, so started late, and made for end of Pinnacled Ice.  We found our little bay of sea-ice all gone out.  Luckily there was a sort of ice-foot around the Pinnacled Ice and we completed seven miles and got through."[278]

Tuesday, April 23. “Atkinson and his party got in about 7 P.M. after a long pull all day in very bad weather.  They are just in the state of a party which has been out on a very cold spring journey:  clothes and sleeping-bags very wet, sweaters, pyjama coats and so forth full of snow.  Atkinson looks quite done up, his cheeks are fallen in and his throat shows thin.  Wright is also a good deal done up, and the whole party has evidently had little sleep.  They have had a difficult and dangerous trip, and it is a good thing they are in, and they are fortunate to have had no mishaps, for the sea-ice is constantly going out over there, and when they were on it they never knew that they might not find themselves cut off from the shore.  Big leads were constantly opening, even in ice over a foot thick and with little wind.  But even if the ice had been in I do not believe that they could have gone many days."[279]

That same day the sun appeared for the last time for four months.

April 28 seemed to be a quite good day when we woke, and Wright, Keohane and Gran started back for Cape Evans before 10 A.M.  We could then see the outline of Inaccessible Island, and the ice in the Sound looked fairly firm.  So they determined to go by the way of the sea-ice under Castle Rock instead of going along the Peninsula to the Hutton Cliffs.  Soon after they started it came up thick, and by 11.30 it was blowing a mild blizzard with a low temperature.  We felt considerable anxiety, especially when a full blizzard set in with a temperature down to -31 deg., and we could not see how the ice was standing it.  Two days later it cleared, and that night a flare was lit at Cape Evans at a pre-arranged time, by which signal we knew that they had arrived safely.  We heard afterwards that when it came up thick they decided to follow the land which was the only thing that they could see.  They soon found that the ice was not nearly so good as was supposed:  there were open pools of water, and some of the ice was moving up and down with their weight as they crossed it:  Gran put his foot in.  Then Wright went ahead with the Alpine rope, the ice being blue, the pulling easy, and the wind force 4-5.  As far as Turtleback Island the ice was newly frozen, but after that they knew they were on oldish ice.  They were lost on Cape Evans in the blizzard for some time, but eventually found the hut safely.  One of the lessons of this expedition is that too little care was taken in travelling on sea-ice.