“No sense in getting too far away from the crash site,” says the man who has been giving the orders. There’s something military about him, Annette decides; maybe it’s the trimmed moustache or the fact that he’s older. He and the other man ship their paddles and he begins to roll a cigarette, taking the papers and tobacco from his breast pocket.

“I suggest we introduce ourselves,” he says; he’s used to directing.

There are not as many people in the boat as Annette at first supposed. There’s the two men, the one who says he’s in insurance (though Annette doubts this), and the younger one, who has a beard and claims to teach at a free school; the older man’s wife, who is plump and kind-looking and keeps saying “I’m all right,” although she isn’t, she’s been crying quietly to herself ever since they’ve been in the boat; an overly tanned woman of forty-five or so who gives no clue as to her occupation, and a boy who says he’s a university student. When it comes to Annette’s turn she says, “I write a food column for one of the newspapers.” In fact she did this for a couple of months, before she got onto the travel page, so she knows enough about it to be able to back it up. Still, she is surprised at herself for lying and can’t imagine why she did. The only reason she can think of is that she hasn’t believed the stories of any of the others, except the plump, crying woman, who could not possibly be anything other than what she so obviously is.

“We’ve been damn lucky,” says the older man, and they all agree.

“What are we supposed to do now?” says the tanned woman.

“Just sit around and wait to be rescued, I guess,” the bearded schoolteacher says, with a nervous laugh. “It’s an enforced vacation.”

“It’ll just be a matter of hours,” says the older man. “They’re more efficient about these things than they used to be.”

Annette volunteers the information that she has some food and they all congratulate her for being so resourceful and foresighted. She provides the wrapped sandwiches and they divide them up equally; they pass around one of the bottles of ginger ale to wash them down. Annette doesn’t say anything about the peanuts or the other two bottles of ginger ale. She does say, however, that she has some seasick pills if anyone needs one.

She’s about to toss the plastic sandwich trays overboard, but the older man stops her. “No, no,” he says, “can’t throw those away. They might come in handy.” She can’t imagine what for, but she does as he says.

The plump woman has stopped crying and has become quite talkative; she wants to know all about the food column. In fact they are now a festive bunch, chattering away as if they are on a huge sofa in a recreation room, or in the waiting room of an airport where the flights have been temporarily held up. There’s the same atmosphere of time being passed, from necessity but with superficial cheer. Annette is bored. For a moment she thought something real had happened to her but there is no danger here, it is as safe in this lifeboat as everywhere else, and the piece she would write about it would come out sounding the same as her other pieces. For exploring the Caribbean, a round orange lifeboat strikes an unusual note. The vistas are charming, and you have a body-to-body contact with the sea which is simply not possible in any other kind of boat. Take some sandwiches and plan to stay out for lunch!

The sun sets in its usual abrupt, spectacular fashion, and it’s not until then that they begin to get worried. No helicopters have appeared, and none of the other lifeboats is in sight. Perhaps they paddled away too quickly. They haven’t even heard any sounds of distant rescue operations. But “They’ll be along, all right,” the older man says, and his wife suggests they have a singsong. She begins with “You Are My Sunshine,” warbling in a church soprano, and continues through a repertoire of once-popular favourites: “On Top of Old Smokey,” “Good Night Irene.” The others join in, and Annette is momentarily amazed by the number of words to these songs that she herself can remember. She goes to sleep during one of the choruses, her winter coat pulled over her; she’s glad she brought it.

She awakens feeling groggy and clogged. She can’t believe they’re all still on the boat, it’s beginning to get annoying, and she is boiling hot under her coat. The rubber of the lifeboat is hot too and there’s no wind, the sea is as flat as the palm of your hand with only a sickening groundswell. The others are sprawled listlessly around the boat’s circumference, their legs in awkward tangles here and there. Annette thinks to herself they’d be better off with fewer people in the boat, but immediately censors this. The two women are still asleep; the plump one, the singer, lies with her mouth open, snoring slightly. Annette rubs her eyes; the lids feel dry and gritty. She seems to remember getting up in the night and squatting perilously over the edge of the boat; someone else must have made this effort and failed, or not made it at all, for there is a faint smell of urine. She is very thirsty.

The older man is awake, smoking in silence; so is the one with the beard. The student is drowsing still, curled in a heap, like a puppy.

“What should we do?” Annette asks.

“Stick it out till they come for us,” says the older man. He doesn’t look so military any more with his day’s growth of stubble.

“Maybe they won’t come,” says the bearded man. “Maybe we’re in the Bermuda whatchamacallit. You know, where those ships and planes vanish without a trace. What made the plane go down, anyway?”

Annette looks at the sky, which is more like a flat screen than ever. Maybe this is what has happened, she thinks, they’ve gone through the screen to the other side; that’s why the rescuers can’t see them. On this side of the screen, where she thought there would be darkness, there is merely a sea like the other one, with thousands of castaways floating around in orange lifeboats, lost and waiting to be rescued.

“The main thing,” says the older man, “is to keep your mind occupied.” He flicks his cigarette butt into the water. Annette expects to see a shark emerge and snap it up, but none does. “First off, we’ll all get sunstroke if we aren’t careful.” He’s right, they are all quite red.

He wakes the others and puts them to work constructing a shade, which they make from Annette’s winter coat and the men’s suit jackets, the buttons of one inserted into the buttonholes of the next. They prop it up with the paddles, lashing it on with neckties and stockings, and sit under it, with a fleeting sense of accomplishment. It’s hot and stuffy, but it is out of the sun. Again at his suggestion the men turn out their pockets and the women empty their purses, “to see what we’ve got to work with,” the older man says. Annette has forgotten everyone’s name and suggests they introduce themselves again, which they do. Bill and Verna, Julia, Mike and Greg. Julia has a pounding headache and takes several of Annette’s aspirins-with-codeine. Bill is going through the assortment of handkerchiefs, keys, compacts, lipsticks, travel-sized bottles of hand lotion, pills and chewing gum. He has appropriated the two remaining bottles of ginger ale and the peanuts, which he says will have to be rationed. For breakfast he lets them each have a Chiclet and a cough drop, to suck on. After that they take turns brushing their teeth, with Annette’s toothbrush. She’s the only one who has travelled light and thus has all her toiletries with her. The others used suitcases, which of course went down in the hold of the plane.

“If it rains,” Bill says, “this boat is perfect for catching water,” but it does not look like rain.

Bill has a lot of good ideas. In the afternoon he spends some time fishing, with a hook made from a safety-pin and a line of dental floss. He catches nothing. He says they could attract seagulls by flashing Annette’s camera lens at them, if there were any seagulls. Annette is lethargic, although she keeps prodding herself, reminding herself that this is important, this may be the real thing, now that they have not been rescued.