Byrd's men left him in his tiny station and returned across the ice to the main base 123 miles to the north. Winter blizzard conditions soon surrounded Byrd. He knew he was in for a long period of solitary confinement, with no hope of returning to the base, even if a medical emergency demanded this. He could never make the return trip to the base on his own, and it would be too dangerous for a team of men to try to get to him in the winter darkness across the miles of ice.
After several months of isolation, Byrd became very ill. He was distressed and confused about his condition—nausea, vomiting, terrible headaches, blurred vision, great weakness. Days would go by, and he would cling to life by a thread, his mind wandering, drifting in and out of the dizzying incoherence of frequent comas. He would, by sheer force of will, gather his reserve of fading energy and stagger across the tiny room to light the stove and open a can of food, which he soon lost from his stomach. Gradually, he came to realize that the fumes from his kerosene stove and from the gasoline-powered generator for the telegraph were poisoning him. But if he turned off the stove, he would freeze to death, and the telegraph was his only contact with others.
He knew his life was in real danger, yet he refused to let his men know of his desperate situation. Nor could he admit to himself that he was in trouble.
Listen to his own words, written half a century ago, in his snow-buried room with the air heavy with fumes and the inside walls encrusted with glistening ice:
It is painful for me to dwell on the details of my collapse.... The subject is one that does not easily bear discussion, if only because a man's hurt, like his love, is most seemly when concealed. From my youth I have believed that sickness was somehow humiliating, something to be kept hidden....
To some men sickness brings a desire to be left alone; animal-like, their instinct is to crawl into a hole and lick the hurt.
There were aspects of this situation which I would rather not mention at all, since they involve that queer business called self-respect....
For a reason I can't wholly explain, except in terms of pride, I concealed from [my] men, as best I could, the true extent of my weakness. I never mentioned and, therefore, never acknowledged it.... I wanted no one to be able to look over the wall....[[1]]
[[1]] Richard E. Byrd, Alone (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1938), pp. 166, viii, 294-295.