Most people were still standing on the edge of the Jellyfish near the boat, but a couple of men were on the deck itself, assembling the raft. ‘I think you’ll need to put them on the sides,’ somebody called up. ‘Otherwise it might make the bottom of the raft too uneven. Keep the most crumbly corpse to put over yourself. You don’t want to risk bits of the flesh or one of the limbs falling off into the sea.’

Lana gave a grimace. ‘Crumbly corpse,’ she said. ‘Sounds like you.’ We took it as a general insult. It wasn’t directed at anyone in particular.

With their new, shorn heads, both Kate and Lana looked younger and prettier, but also more vulnerable. Beneath their uniform dirty brown locks, it turned out Lana had soft white-blonde hair which was now almost invisible in the patches where Kate had cut very close to the scalp – particularly in those rare moments when the sun broke brightly through the clouds. Her scalp shone pinkly through her hair stubble, and sores were visible where the dirt and salt had rubbed against her skin.

Kate’s hair actually was brown. Who knew? It was a deep brown colour, with lighter, golden highlights. And either Lana was better at cutting hair with a blunt table knife, or Kate’s hair was thicker. It covered her scalp completely and seemed impossibly glossy and sleek. Her new haircut suited her, emphasising her jawline and dimples – but then, on Kate, the matted dirty hair we’d had for ages had looked good too.

‘Attention!’ shouted Soldier John, gathering people in. ‘To your positions!’

There were four people on board the boat now, with the rest of us scattered along the edge of the creature. Two men cautiously lowered the raft over the side of the boat. Stinky followed, climbing tentatively on top. He had a plastic-bag rope attached round his waist, and he tugged on it several times, checking its strength. ‘All good,’ he said, giving a double thumbs-up sign and a nervous smile.

‘Lie down, Stinky,’ said Soldier John. Already the shorter tentacles were swarming around the bottom of the raft. ‘Drop the body.’

The largest of the dead bodies was lowered on top of Stinky. He evened it up over himself, ensuring that its arms covered his arms, and its legs were on his legs. He turned his face to one side so that he wasn’t looking the corpse in the empty eye sockets, but even still, some of the corpse’s hair was spilling on to his face.

‘When you’re ready, Stinky,’ said Soldier John. ‘Good luck, man!’

‘Good luck, everybody,’ called Stinky, though it was muffled, because of the corpse.

‘’old the rope,’ Soldier John said, more quietly.

At least ten people were holding the rope, which was probably unnecessary, but they all tensed, tightened their grip, and fixed their eyes on Stinky.

‘Go!’