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.

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.