“Everybody is up to his eyes in work,” runs the last entry in the journal left by Mackintosh at Cape Evans.  “All gear is being overhauled, and personal clothing is having the last stitches.  We have been improvising shoes to replace the finneskoe, of which we are badly short.  Wild has made an excellent shoe out of an old horse-rug he found here, and this is being copied by other men.  I have made myself a pair of mitts out of an old sleeping-bag.  Last night I had a bath, the second since being here....  I close this journal to-day (September 30) and am packing it with my papers here.  To-morrow we start for Hut Point.  Nine of us are going on the sledge party for laying depots—­ namely, Stevens, Spencer-Smith, Joyce, Wild, Cope, Hayward, Jack, Richards, and myself.  Gaze, who is still suffering from bad feet, is remaining behind and will probably be relieved by Stevens after our first trip.  With us we take three months’ provisions to leave at Hut Point.  I continue this journal in another book, which I keep with me.”

The nine men reached Hut Point on October 1.  They took the last loads with them.  Three sledges and three tents were to be taken on to the Barrier, and the parties were as follows: 

No. 1:  Mackintosh, Spencer-Smith, and Wild; No. 2:  Joyce, Cope, and Richards; No. 3:  Jack, Hayward, and Gaze.  On October 3 and 4 some stores left at Half-Way Camp were brought in, and other stores were moved on to Safety Camp.  Bad weather delayed the start of the depot-laying expedition from Hut Point until October 9.

CHAPTER XV

LAYING THE DEPOTS

Mackintosh’s account of the depot-laying journeys undertaken by his parties in the summer of 1915-16 unfortunately is not available.  The leader of the parties kept a diary, but he had the book with him when he was lost on the sea-ice in the following winter.  The narrative of the journeys has been compiled from the notes kept by Joyce, Richards, and other members of the parties, and I may say here that it is a record of dogged endeavour in the face of great difficulties and serious dangers.  It is always easy to be wise after the event, and one may realize now that the use of the dogs, untrained and soft from shipboard inactivity, on the comparatively short journey undertaken immediately after the landing in 1915 was a mistake.  The result was the loss of nearly all the dogs before the longer and more important journeys of 1915-16 were undertaken.  The men were sledging almost continuously during a period of six months; they suffered from frost-bite, scurvy, snow-blindness, and the utter weariness of overtaxed bodies.  But the they placed the depots in the required positions, and if the Weddell Sea party had been able to make the crossing of the Antarctic continent, the stores and fuel would have been waiting for us where we expected to find them.