"There'll be a bit of a scar. But he won't have any more scars than you, at that, my boy."
"Are my feet going to take a long time to heal, Doctor?"
"I'm afraid it'll be quite a while before they feel all right. We'll have you up and around before examinations, however, just the same. That's more than I can say for my other patient, though. He's badly burned."
"Have you found out who he was?" queried Eric.
"Certainly. He's the chief engineer of the craft, or, to speak more rightly, he was the chief engineer."
"How do you suppose he got left behind?"
"That's quite a story," the surgeon answered, as he tore off a piece of bandage. "He's too sick to do much talking, but it seems that when the fire was reported beyond control he sent all hands on deck out of the engine room, remaining behind himself to look after the pump-engines. The passengers and crew immediately took to the boats. When he tried to get up on deck a few minutes later he found that he was cut off. He had to get a crowbar and wrench his way through an iron grating, before he could get to the open air.
"In the meantime, every one supposed that he was in one or other of the boats, and they had pushed off, leaving him marooned. For an hour or more the flames smoldered, and the deck was quite bearable. He tried to gather materials for a raft, but almost everything on the ship was iron. The cabin fittings were wood, but he couldn't find an ax, the sockets where the axes were usually kept being empty.
"Then he remembered that the wireless instruments were clamped on to a wooden bench and he went into the deck-house to try to tear that apart. The door slammed as he went in, and while he was yanking at the bench the ship buckled and the pressure jammed the door, making him a prisoner. He seems to remember very little after that, but he must have tried hard to get out, for he broke his arm in some way."