  We investigate the physical and chemical processes at work during the
formation of a massive protostar based on the observation of water in an
outflow from a very young object previously detected in H2 and SiO in the IRAS
17233-3606 region. We estimated the abundance of water to understand its
chemistry, and to constrain the mass of the emitting outflow. We present new
observations of shocked water obtained with the HIFI receiver onboard Herschel.
We detected water at high velocities in a range similar to SiO. We
self-consistently fitted these observations along with previous SiO data
through a state-of-the-art, one-dimensional, stationary C-shock model. We found
that a single model can explain the SiO and H2O emission in the red and blue
wings of the spectra. Remarkably, one common area, similar to that found for H2
emission, fits both the SiO and H2O emission regions. This shock model
subsequently allowed us to assess the shocked water column density,
N(H2O)=1.2x10^{18} cm^{-2}, mass, M(H2O)=12.5 M_earth, and its maximum
fractional abundance with respect to the total density, x(H2O)=1.4x10^{-4}. The
corresponding water abundance in fractional column density units ranges between
2.5x10^{-5} and 1.2x10^{-5}, in agreement with recent results obtained in
outflows from low- and high-mass young stellar objects.
