This is my submission to the writing prompt contest, put on by @themarkymark. The theme for this was "tension".

I was fascinated with the horrific history of Pearl Harbor. After the attack, sailors who had managed to stay alive banged against the hull to alert their allies that they still lived. It was impossible to get to them, as the water was full of fuel and oil. Sparks from welding through the steel could set the entire port on fire. So there was nothing they could do to save the trapped sailors.

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Tension

by @dirge

When the bombs hit, Ron was sitting in the storeroom, peeling potatoes with a cigarette dangling from his mouth. Potatoes. He'd gone and joined the navy to see the world. All he saw was a shitty tiny storeroom full of potatoes and cabbage. He smoked away, indifferent how pissed off his CO would be that he was smoking around food in the ship.
"Damn it. This place is worse than hell," he murmured.

Then the entire steel mammoth of the USS Plymouth shook to its core. Bags of potatoes, carrots and green beans flew off their shelves. Ron fell to ground, hitting his head hard on the steel. The pain came through for a brief moment, the color of white, searing over his mind before he collapsed to unconsciousness.

***

Cliff had been on guard duty, a post he hated. He smoked his morning cigarette, out of eyes of his CO, and thought about Mary back at home. Would she still love him? Would she still know him as the country boy in Arkansas when he walked up to her and asked her to marry him? His thoughts ended abruptly when the CO stomped over to him and barked up a storm about how he needed to keep his eyes to the skies. Cliff didn’t listen to the rest. He took the smack on his chin then headed down to the storeroom to help with preparing breakfast.

***

Lou ran and the water followed him, swallowing up everything in its path. The air was thick with smoke and screams and it seemed the whole ship had fallen forward. What was once a straight hall had collapsed into an uncanny terrain of space. Lou went heard the loud crash of water and saw a man fall into a room on his left. He leapt in behind him and landed on a sack of food. As the water seeped in above him, Lou and the man swung the door closed and spun the airlock. He glanced at the man, recognizing him as private Cliff Olds. The last thing he saw in the man’s eyes, before the power cut off and darkness swallowed them whole, was terror.

***

Ron woke up to shouting. Shouting and darkness and water. He screamed and felt hands pull him out from a collapsed shelf. Before he could speak, the storeroom shook again and the ship rocked. Another blast echoed through the steel hull. Then more screams. “We’re under attack!” he heard someone say. “They’re bombing Pearl Harbor.”

***

The metal rod in Cliff’s hand shook violently with each swing. The sound was deafening, echoing throughout the storeroom. But it was his shift and he swung repeatedly. They no longer screamed, no longer begged for anyone to hear them. The ship had gone completely upside down. And it was by their own dumb luck that they’d managed to be in a storeroom airlock when the attack happened. In the all encompassing darkness, the three men lived. And Cliff swung the metal rod against the ceiling, hoping that anyone above them might hear it. Hoping that anyone above them might come set them free. Cliff smelled the putrid air, and that thick acrid smell of fuel came through the shit and rot. They were wallowing in a damn fuel tank now.

***

Lou had made a mark with a pencil for each day he woke. They had food, sure. Soggy cabbage and potatoes. They had water. But he knew they were almost out. Cliff had gotten silent. Sulky. And Ron was weak. So weak, left to mumbling in the dark. But Lou made the mark. Was it the tenth time? He couldn’t tell. In the total darkness of the room, as the water grew higher and higher, surrounded by their own piss and shit. He made a mark. Was it the tenth time? How long had they been in the dark?

Yes, the dark. He heard things in the dark. Not just the banging on the ceiling. Not just echoes and groans of the sinking steel hull. There was a voice. So quiet, that he had to strain his ears to hear it. Lou was sure Ron and Cliff heard it too, but he didn’t ask. A voice telling him to let go. Just let the tension go.

He'd begun seeing things as well. Light, impossible to be there. But it was. He knew what it meant. He was going mad.

“We’re dead...suffocation,” Cliff murmured. "Die of thirst. We're dead in here. Waters full of fuel...somebody just light a match. Mine are all out. Just light the match."

“Soon,” Ron said. "Soon...soon...soon."

Lou, weeping, banged against the steel prison of the ship's hull.

"Let go. Let go. Let go," Ron repeated in the darkness.