“But I can tell you we got a way in, sir. We got guys over there, we boarded them bastards and we’re giving ’em hell, too. That’s also why we can’t be firing the big gun on ’em. We’ll be killing our own if we don’t look out.”

Evans nodded without saying anything. Men were beginning to notice his presence, turning and gawking at the admittedly hellish spectacle he presented. Some looked impressed, others horrified or just scared shitless.

“Make way! Make way!” yelled Eddie Mohr. “Commander Evans coming through. Move aside, ladies. Some Japs gonna get their asses kicked now!”

Evans tried to live up to the chief’s performance. With his good right hand he took a .45 pistol from a sailor who seemed only too glad to give it up. He did his best to ignore the ankle that threatened to collapse under him again. He felt hands slapping him on the shoulder and back. Heard men call out his name. Some even clapped and cheered. He had no idea why. It was mostly a daze. But a gut-level instinct told him his presence was needed.

So he painfully shouldered his way through the increasingly dense mass of crewmen, not really sure of where he was headed, carried along by some current in the seething tide of close-pressed humanity. He caught a confused glimpse of something ahead, an impossible wall blocking the corridor. Then the flux of rank-smelling bodies pushed him left and into a large bunkroom.

It was crowded. And dark. The electrical system must have failed. A few handheld lamps, hung from the top tier of hammocks, provided the only light. They swayed back and forth, sending macabre pools of shadow spilling over and through the heaving crowd of men in time to the swinging torches. This added to the atmosphere created by the tear in reality that stood across the room.

That’s how Evans thought of it, a tear in the fabric of the real world. There was a gray steel wall running through the center of the bunkroom, in a place where it simply couldn’t be. He could see that it was composed of the same material he’d seen so briefly out in the corridor. Perhaps it was even part of the same structure. It divided the room at an odd angle, and the more carefully he inspected the scene, the more unthinkable it became.

Off to one side, three hammocks emerged from the wall like solid ghosts. There was nothing holding them to the blank metal face. It was as if they had been extruded, somehow. Nearby, a circle of men was gathered around, pointing at something down at floor level. Evans and Mohr wrestled their way over to discover a boot and most of a leg below the knee, which looked as if it were disappearing into the barrier, like a man who had been frozen while stepping through a stage curtain.