“Help me with this door. I think the force of the water behind it is making it difficult to open, but we’ve got to try harder if we want to get out of here alive.”

Together we worked on the door, pushing with everything we had. My head felt as though it were splitting, but my determination to survive the disaster outweighed everything else and when the door squeaked and the bright light of a tropical sun filled the small cabin I started laughing.

“We did it,” I shouted. “Now, can you swim?”

“Sure I can,” the man replied.

“We’d better start then,” I said as the water rushed in and the plane began to sink at a noticeably faster rate.

Without another word I dived through the door.

“What about sharks?” I heard the man ask.

Up until that point I hadn’t considered sharks, but the minute he mentioned that word I imagined I saw dark shadows gliding beneath the surface of the water.

“Just swim,” I called back, trying to block all thought of man-eaters.

I heard a splash and was soon joined by a man whose name I realised I didn’t know.

“I’m Clint,” I said.

“Carlos,” the man replied. “Where are we swimming to?”

I was treading water and spitting small mouthfuls of salt water from my mouth. It was almost impossible to see anything in the distance over the uneven surface of the water.

“I’m not sure,” I replied.

“Shouldn’t we stay by the wreckage? Won’t it be easier to spot from the air?”

It struck me as being a very good idea, excellent, in fact, yet by the time we turned the wreckage had almost completely disappeared, leaving no more than a profusion of bubbles to mark the spot where it had been.

“It was a good idea,” I said. “Looks like we’re going to have to swim for it.”

“But where?” asked Carlos, scanning the waves. “We could swim for days and not find land. We’ll just exhaust ourselves and drown.”

“That’ll happen no matter what we do. We’ll exhaust ourselves by staying here, treading water, but I’m certainly not going to hang around hoping we’ll get spotted by a passing plane. We’re in the middle of nowhere, mate.”

I was all fired up. I launched myself forward and began to swim. I had no idea where I was going, but at least I was going somewhere. I’d rather die trying to swim to safety than wait around for a plane, or a shark, to come and get me.

After an hour in the water the top of my head was beginning to burn. I could feel it frying. My temples were tight. The throbbing in my head had eased or perhaps other aches had taken their place in the realm of my consciousness. I wanted a drink so badly it was a struggle to stop myself from taking a great gulp of sea water, but I knew I couldn’t. It would only make me thirstier. I had to push on. I had to think of other things to take my mind off my predicament.

The sun eased its way across the sky like a ball of butter sliding across the Teflon coated surface of a hot pan. As it neared the end of its journey it set the sky on fire with great plumes of red, orange, yellow and pink. I’d never seen a sunset so beautiful. I just wish I’d been in more of a position to enjoy it.

I looked across at Carlos, who appeared to be as exhausted as I was. His nose was bright red from sunburn, his lips were cracked and he was having trouble keeping his eyes open.

“Are you all right?” I called to him.

He mumbled back that he was.

Something splashed to my right. My head snapped around expecting to see the dorsal fin of a shark. My heart started galloping, but I didn’t stop swimming. Every stroke I took was a stroke closer to the end of this nightmare, and if I was going to be eaten alive then there was nothing I could do about it.