Posey, Chester L. "Overboard"
One in Collier’s “A short, short story complete on this page” series. The setting: a South Pacific convoy containing hundreds of vessels. A soldier somehow falls overboard during the night, and fears that his sudden plummet has gone unnoticed. The story takes two tracks; one, describing the GI’s physical and emotional experiences in the warm waters of the Pacific; the other, with the convoy itself. The soldier’s fall had, it turns out, been immediately reported, and as one the convoy works together to devise a rescue plan and carry it out. The GI’s eventual rescue is rather movingly described:
“The tears were streaming down his face and their salt taste was sweet in his salt-caked mouth. Arms lifted him, and he was suddenly warm, so warm with realization and friendship and love that he could hardly stand it.”