They have stuffed him into the narrow gap between the U-boat’s slotted outer hull and the pressure hull within, so that bitterly cold, black water streams through with the bludgeoning force of a firehose and wracks him with malarial chills: bones cracking, joints freezing, muscles knotting. He is wedged in tightly between uneven surfaces of hard rough steel, bending him in ways he’s not supposed to bend, and punishing him when he tries to move. Barnacles are beginning to grow on him: sort of like lice but bigger and capable of burrowing deeper into the flesh. Somehow he is able to fight for breath anyway, just enough to stay alive and really savor just how unpleasant the situation is. He’s been breathing cold seawater for a long time, it has made his windpipe raw, and he suspects that plankton or something are eating his lungs from the inside out. He pounds on the pressure hull but the impact makes no noise. He can sense the warmth and heat inside, and he would like to get in and enjoy both of them. Finally some kind of dream-logic thing happens and he finds a hatch. The current sweeps Shaftoe out, leaving him suspended alone in the watery cosmos, and the U-boat hisses away and abandons him. Shaftoe is lost now. He cannot tell up from down. Something bashes him on the head. He sees a few black drumlike things moving inexorably through the water with parallel comet-trails of bubbles behind them. Depth charges.