The German Ocean had fallen down upon him.

He was quite sure it was the German Ocean, because he had fixed it in his head by repeating "the North Sea or German Ocean." Mixing up delirious dream with fact, he clearly remembered the green waves rearing themselves up first, an immeasurable wall, then spreading a translucent canopy beneath the firmament and then descending in awful deluge.

He had a confused memory of morning sunshine, of a cottage, of a hard-featured woman, of sitting before a fire with a blanket round his shoulders, of a toddling child smeared to the eyebrows with dirt and treacle whom he had wanted to wash.

Over and over again, lately, he had wanted to wash that child, but it had always eluded his efforts.
Once he had thought of scraping it with a bit of hoof-iron, but it had turned into a Stilton cheese.

It was all very puzzling.