The buzzing grew louder and became a distinct annoyance. He tried to shut it away from his consciousness, but it persisted. He felt himself being dragged back from the coma into which he had sunk. The buzzing became a loud drone, then smashed at his ear drums with a shattering roar.
He came to life again, and fought to blink his salt-encrusted eyelids open. He recognized that roar of a Spitfire motor. It was zooming over him, flattening out in a crazy reckless pancake dangerously close to the surface of the water.
He got one eye open and caught a flashing glimpse of a grinning Irish face leaning over the side of the plane and shouting something to him. The plane lifted swiftly and swept away and Stan found himself waving a numbed hand after it.
The ice in his veins was transformed into tongues of flame that licked through his body. O'Malley had come, just as he had known the Irishman would. He would bring a rescue ship back. All Stan had to do was stay alive a little longer.
He grinned happily as he watched the Spitfire become a dim speck in the sky and then disappear. He began beating the water with his arms and legs, and he jeered good-naturedly at the sea that had sought to engulf him.
The plane was coming back, circling high overhead to spot the floating pilot for a fishing boat that was putting out from shore. As the small craft drew near Stan saw two men in oilskins waving to him. He waved back, and then a strange thing happened. It was as though someone had struck him on the head with a sledge hammer. He was unconscious when the boat reached him, and he stayed unconscious for a full twenty-four hours.
He woke up in a strange new world that was utterly different from anything he had known before. A clean, white, antiseptic world with narrow beds and pretty girls in white uniforms. He was tucked in one of those beds, and one of the pretty girls in a white uniform was bending over him solicitously.
"Where am I?" he demanded.
"This is a hospital. You are very sick," the nurse said soothingly.
"Hospital!" Stan sputtered. "I'm not staying in any hospital. I was never in a hospital in my life!" He got to his feet as orderlies and a head nurse came running.