He had been badly cut about the head by flying glass, and the explosion had injured him internally, how serious could not be determined, although two of his ribs had been broken. Only his iron will and athletic training had saved him, for he was weak, not only from the loss of blood, but from water which he had been unable to avoid swallowing.
The doctor shook his head gravely over him, but something had to be done, even though it was painful to move him. He could not lie there in an open boat.
Kennedy settled the matter quickly. From a tenant who lived over a store near the waterfront he found where a delivery wagon could be borrowed. Using a pair of long oars and some canvas, we improvised a stretcher which we slung from the top of the wagon and so managed to transport Shelby to the Harbor House, avoiding the crowd of curious onlookers at the main entrance, and finally depositing him in the bed in the room which he usually occupied.
The pain from his wounds was intense, but he managed to keep up his nerve until we reached the hotel. Then he collapsed.
As we tried to help the doctor to bring him around I feared that the injury and the shock might have proved fatal.
“Pretty serious,” muttered the doctor, in answer to my anxious inquiry, “but I think he’ll pull through it. Call up Main 21. There’s a trained nurse summering at the house. Get her down.”
I hastened to do so and had hardly finished when Kennedy came over to me.
“I think we ought to notify his sister,” he remarked. “See if you can get Mrs. Walcott on the house ’phone.”
I called, but the voice that answered was not that of Frances Walcott. It took me a few seconds before I realized that it was Winifred Walcott, and I covered up the transmitter as I turned to Kennedy to tell him and ask what he wanted me to do.
“Let me talk to her,” decided Craig. “I think I won’t let events take their course any longer. She can be the best nurse for Shelby—if she will.”