The whole party had intended, if the weather had held good, to have attempted the passage across with the full moon about May 16.  On the date on which Mackintosh and Hayward left it was impossible that a sledge should travel the distance over the sea-ice owing to the sticky nature of the surface.  Hence their decision to go alone and leave the others to follow with the sledge and equipment when the surface should improve.  That they had actually been lost was learned only on July 15, on which date the party from Hut Point arrived at Cape Evans.

The entry in Joyce’s diary shows that he had very strong forebodings of disaster when Mackintosh and Hayward left.  He warned them not to go, as the ice was still thin and the weather was uncertain.  Mackintosh seems to have believed that he and Hayward, travelling light, could get across to Cape Evans quickly before the weather broke, and if the blizzard had come two or three hours later they probably would have been safe.  The two men carried no sleeping-bags and only a small meal of chocolate and seal meat.

The weather during June was persistently bad.  No move had been possible on May 16, the sea-ice being out, and Joyce decided to wait until the next full moon.  When this came the weather was boisterous, and so it was not until the full moon of July that the journey to Cape Evans was made.  During June and July seals got very scarce, and the supply of blubber ran short.

Meals consisted of little but seal meat and porridge.  The small stock of salt was exhausted, but the men procured two and a half pounds by boiling down snow taken from the bottom layer next to the sea-ice.  The dogs recovered condition rapidly and did some hunting on their own account among the seals.

The party started for Cape Evans on July 15.  They had expected to take advantage of the full moon, but by a strange chance they had chosen the period of an eclipse, and the moon was shadowed most of the time they were crossing the sea-ice.  The ice was firm, and the three men reached Cape Evans without difficulty.  They found Stevens, Cope, Gaze, and Jack at the Cape Evans Hut, and learned that nothing had been seen of Captain Mackintosh and Hayward.  The conclusion that these men had perished was accepted reluctantly.  The party at the base consisted now of Stevens, Cope, Joyce, Richards, Gaze, Wild, and Jack.

The men settled down now to wait for relief.  When opportunity offered Joyce led search-parties to look for the bodies or any trace of the missing men, and he subsequently handed me the following report: 

“I beg to report that the following steps were taken to try and discover the bodies of Captain Mackintosh and Mr. Hayward.  After our party’s return to the hut at Cape Evans, July 15, 1916, it was learned that Captain Mackintosh and Mr. Hayward had not arrived; and, being aware of the conditions under which they were last seen, all the members of the wintering party were absolutely convinced that these two men were totally lost and dead—­that they could not have lived for more than a few hours at the outside in the blizzard that they had encountered, they being entirely unprovided with equipment of any sort.