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