While we were erecting the tents there were several snow-slips, and Watson, Kennedy and I walked landwards after supper to try for a "snap" of one in the act of falling, but they refused to oblige us. It was found that one or more avalanches had thrown blocks of ice, weighing at least twenty tons, two hundred yards past the hole in which we spent five days on the depot journey. They had, therefore, travelled six hundred yards from the cliff.
The Alligator Nunatak was explored on January 2, 1913. It was found to be half a mile long, four hundred feet high and four hundred and fifty feet in width, and, like most of the rock we had seen, mainly gneiss.
There was half a gale blowing on the 4th and though the wind was abeam, the sail was reefed and we moved quickly. The dogs ran loose, their feet being very sore from pulling on rough, nobbly ice. The day's run was the record up to that time—twenty-two miles. Our camp was in the vicinity of two small nunataks discovered in August 1912. We reckoned to be at the Base in two days and wondered how poor Moyes was faring.
Early on the 5th, the last piece of broken country fell behind, and one sledge being rigged with full sail, the second sledge was taken in tow. Both dogs had bleeding feet and were released, running alongside. During the halt for lunch a sail was raised on the dogs' sledge, using tent poles as a mast, a floor-cloth for a sail, an ice-axe for an upper yard and a bamboo for a lower yard. Getting under way we found that the lighter sledge overran ours; so we cast off and Harrisson took the light sledge, the sail working so well that he rode on top of the load most of the time. Later in the afternoon the wind increased so much that the dogs' sledge was dismasted and taken in tow once more, the sail on the forward sledge being ample for our purpose.
At 4 P.M. we had done twenty miles, and, everybody feeling fresh, I decided to try and reach "The Grottoes," fifteen miles away. The wind increasing to a gale with hurtling drift, the sail was reefed, and even then was more than enough to push along both sledges. Two of us made fast behind and maintained a continual brake to stop them running away. At 9 P.M. the gale became so strong that we struck sail and camped. Altogether, the day's run was thirty-five miles.
An hour's march next morning, and, through the glasses, we saw the mast and soon afterwards the hut. Just before reaching home, we struck up a song, and in a few seconds Moyes came running out. When he saw there were four of us, he stood on his head.
As we expected, Moyes had never thought of Harrisson coming with me and had quite given him up as dead. When a month had elapsed—the time for which Harrisson had food—Moyes packed a sledge with provisions for Harrisson, himself and the dogs and went out for six days. Then, recognizing the futility of searching for any one in that white waste of nothingness, he returned. He looked well, after his lonely nine weeks, but said that it was the worst time he had ever had in his life. Moyes reported that the Western party were delayed in starting by bad weather until November 7.
The total distance sledged during our main summer eastern journey was two hundred and thirty-seven miles, including thirty-two of relay work, but none of the many reconnoitring miles. Out of seventy days, there were twenty-eight on which the weather was adverse. On the spring depot journey the travelling had been so easy that I fully expected to go four hundred or five hundred miles eastward in the summer. It was therefore, a great disappointment to be blocked as we were.