Gay, Margaret Cooper "Three Wise Men on a Raft"

An O. Henry-esque Christmas tale. Three men and a small Asian boy share a liferaft in the South Pacific after their tanker has been torpedoed by the Japanese. The boy, mute for days, had been part of a group of refugees that the tanker was transporting to supposedly safer shores. Hope dwindles as Allied plane after plane passes overhead and does not see the small life raft. As Christmas approaches, the men decide to make a gift each for the young boy. He is overwhelmed with gratitude, and gives them a personal treasure which he had kept hidden under his shirt: a folded up Chinese dragon kite. Unfurled and flying high in the air, that kite, of course, proves the means necessary to effect their eventual rescue.