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.