In early September 1865, Captain Thomas Musgrave and his men walked at Port Ross. This place is on Auckland Island. Their small ship was called the Flying Scud. Near an old broken house, they found a dead man. One of his feet was in old cloth. Next to him was a flat stone from a roof, with marks on it. Musgrave could read only one word: the name James. The crew of the Flying Scud put the man in a grave on 3 September 1865.
Musgrave knew this island well. He lived there for more than eighteen months. Now he was back for the last two of his men.
His ship, the Grafton, came to the islands to hunt seals. On the night of 2 January 1864, there was a big storm, and the ship hit the rocks. All five men got to the beach. They ate seal meat, birds and fish. A Frenchman, François Édouard Raynal, helped them build a strong house. In the evenings, Musgrave taught the men to read.
Musgrave also wrote a diary. He thought about his wife and children in Sydney. He was angry with himself because he came on this trip. One year after the storm, he wrote: “I have got quite grey-headed.”
No ship came. So the men made their small boat bigger. The boat was still too small for five, so two men, Harris and Forgés, stayed on the island. Musgrave, Raynal and McLaren left on 19 July 1865. A storm came. For five days and nights, Musgrave pumped water out of the boat. They arrived at Stewart Island on 24 July. Then Captain Cross took Musgrave back on the Flying Scud for the other two men. They found Harris and Forgés alive.
But Musgrave did not know one thing. Another ship, the Invercauld, broke on the same island in May 1864. It had 25 men. They had very little food, and many of them died of cold and hunger. The two groups never knew about each other. Today we know the dead man with the stone. He was James Mahoney from the Invercauld. In May 1865, a Portuguese ship took away the last three living men. All five Grafton men lived. Only three Invercauld men lived.
In 1865, Musgrave went home to his family. He told his wife he would never go far out to sea again. Later he worked in lighthouses on the coast of Victoria for the rest of his life.