to remain in the tent while the others tried to get Spencer-Smith to the relative safety of Hut Point. Spencer-Smith died the next day. Richards, Wild and Joyce struggled on to Hut Point with the now stricken Hayward, before returning to rescue Mackintosh. By 18 March, all five survivors were recuperating at Hut Point, having completed what Shackleton's biographers Marjory and James Fisher describe as "one of the most remarkable, and apparently impossible, feats of endurance in the history of polar travel." Disappearance and death With the help of fresh seal meat which halted the ravages of scurvy, the survivors slowly recovered at Hut Point. The unstable condition of the sea ice in McMurdo Sound prevented them from completing the journey to the Cape Evans base. Conditions at Hut Point were gloomy and depressing, with an unrelieved diet and no normal comforts; Mackintosh in particular found the squalor of the hut intolerable, and dreaded the possibility that, caught at Hut Point, they might miss the return of the ship. On 8 May 1916, after carrying out reconnaissance on the state of the sea ice, Mackintosh announced that he and Hayward were prepared to risk the walk to Cape Evans. Although Richards, Joyce and Wild were not in favour there was not much they could do about his decision. Mackintosh was still in charge of the party and short of forcibly restraining him they could only urge him not to go. Richards revealed in an interview years later that Hayward might not have been as keen as Mackintosh. Richards thought Hayward looked dubious but possibly he did not wish to ‘lose face’. Against the urgent advice of their comrades, the two men set off, carrying only light supplies. Shortly after they had moved out of sight of Hut Point, a severe blizzard developed which lasted for two days. When it had subsided, Joyce and Richards followed the still visible footmarks on the ice up to a large crack, where the tracks stopped. Neither Mackintosh nor Hayward arrived at Cape Evans and no trace of either was ever found, despite extensive searches carried out by Joyce after he, Richards and Wild finally managed to reach Cape Evans in June. After Aurora finally returned to Cape Evans in January 1917, there were further searches, equally fruitless. All the indications were that Mackintosh and Hayward had either fallen through the ice, or that the