My thoughts were interrupted by a voice at my shoulder. It was Lieut. Garrity, who had completed his ministrations to Reynolds and DeAngelis. He had been looking for me, it seemed.

"trying to be an iron man, eh? It's to bed with you, my friend. Come along with you."

It was no use protesting. That Irishman was a good doctor and he meant what he said.

That must have been the start of the nickname that has fastened itself to me. "The iron man of the army" they called me on two of the islands we visited later. It is true that I spent little time in bed on the first island and didn't want to go to bed on the ship. But I simply hadn't felt like bed. Anyway, the beds rolled and pitched so that I couldn't sleep when I did turn in.

There were many times during those 21 days adrift in the Pacific that I was anything but an iron man. It was only that I happened to be in better physical condition than the rest that I happened to recuperate faster.

I obeyed Lieut. Garrity and when he had finished with me he told me that he thought Reynolds would recover, but that it had been touch and go with him. The glucose, which Jimmy was still getting, had fixed him up.