मेरा आजीवन कारावास / माझी जन्मठेप (स्वातंत्र्यवीर सावरकर - काले पानी का ऐतिहासिक संस्मरण)

in the movement of the war from the West to the East. Mr. Barrie and other officers of the jail tried their level best to keep us in the dark about the movements of the troops along our shores. But I had divined, in spite of the secrecy maintained by them, that the Emden was hovering about the place to level its attack on the Andamans. News filtered in, that it was seen approaching our shores and that it had created a consternation all over the settlement. The harbour of Port Blair was not of such value to her. Why then did the submarine ply in these waters? I felt it was to bombard the Silver Jail and to set all of us free. I can say freely now how a doctor friend had managed to send me a message in the Andamans that the Abhinav Bharat and other revolutionary societies in Europe had contacted the Kaiser and arranged that a submarine should come over here to bombard the place and release us. It was then to rush into Burma and help to create a violent revolution in India by all arms and ammunition necessary for that task. The ordinary prisoners were full of high hopes. They changed the slogan of "a free days now" into the password of "today or tomorrow." "Brother, today or tomorrow we shall be free", that was a mode of greeting that had become common among them. On a sudden, one would come panting and report to us that the German submarine had come and was sighted by the officers. They had turned their binoculars in her direction and were busy spying her movements. The Europeans on the island had left their bungalows and were running truly enough helter-skelter. The German sub-marine and the German navy had, for some time, become care to the handful of British soldiers posted to guard these islands. And they feared that in the event of such a is, the prisoners themselves would turn against the European settlers. And this feeling was not altogether landless, for the number of soldiers and the amount of arms and ammunitions in that place were not sufficient to guard the place against an ordinary riot. The Andamans no more than a drop in the ocean. What then would be their plight if a German Dreadnought or a German sub-marine were to bombard the place in such a helpless position? But brought up in the traditions of a great Empire, the Britishers held together and had decided to guard the place at all cost. They did not yield themselves to panic but made full preparations to hold the foe at bay. That the flying visit of a submarine should create a panic among the wives and children of the Europeans on that island no surprise to me. The surprise of it was that a handful of them should maintain their hold over us for four con-nous and trying years of the war, and in the midst of thousands of prisoners and other people on the island who regarded them as their enemies and whose faith in their was completely shaken by the catastrophe. Not a coconut plant was allowed to be uprooted from its soil, not a prisoner escaped from his daily quota of two pounds of oakum, or the portion of woven strand that was his usual labour. The same regulations, the same discipline, the same round of labour, the same order in the prison and the outside, went on with the regularity of the clock-work. This nature of an Englishman, this tenacity of will, this pugnacity of temper, the Peshwas had failed to discern in the decline of their power. And today, as then, the population of Hindusthan is ignorant of it as ever. It is this trait in us that filled me with dismay. In the thick of the war rumours floated on to us that that day London had fallen; and that the German Dreadnoughts were bound to attack and take the Andamans