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

The tindal, who had complained to Mr. Barrie about my preaching sedition to the section in my charge, had himself sworn against the Government before me by the name of God. Other tale-tellers had done the same. But I did not report against them. They attributed to me all sorts of offences and continued inventing stories about me, because they were sure that I was not the man to betray them. It became easy for them, by these means, to curry favour with the authorities of the jail to feather their own nests. It was at this time, as I have already mentioned the fact in the Chapter on Shuddhi movement, that the Musulman warders and petty officers were set on to harass me for hours together by indecent abuse within the hearing of those who had come to look up to me with reverence and affection. They were given full freedom to talk about me in foul language all over the prison, and they continued to pester me all along. But then incidents happened one after another which encouraged me to carry on my work even in the depressing atmosphere of my prison-life. The submarine Emden and the havoc it worked The first event which diverted the attention of the Officers at Port Blair from us, and consequently brought us some relief from the troubles described above, was the advent of the Emden in the sea around the Andamans. Soon came the report that the Emden had bombarded Madras. The authorities tried to keep it a dead secret, but this made wilder rumours spread all over the settle-it. Never in the whole history of these islands had the officers found themselves so militarily unprepared and in such panicky atmosphere, There was hurry and bustle all over the place to rally the armed forces to protect the islands from similar attack. Next to the prison they set up an arsenal and an ammunition depot. Trenches were dug out all round the prison-wall and British soldiers were posted in them to guard the prison. A regiment of British soldiers was ordered out from Calcutta. The officers were detailed to guard the shore day and night. Within a few days British warships or men-of-war were sailing on the seas around the Andamans. French submarines and Russian Dreadnoughts touched at Port Blair and passed on. The naval officers on board these warships visited the jail from time to time. The Captain of a Russian submarine, on his visit to the jail, had a long talk with me. He said to me that Europe still remembered that I was a prisoner in the Andamans. The visits of these officers and their occasional talk were not without their consolation to me in the solitude of my cell. These movements made it clear to us that in the strategy of the war in Europe the enemy had marked out these islands as a point of attack in the Eastern waters. Recalling to my mind the activities of the Abhinav Bharat Mandal and the other Indian revolutionary societies in the West, I had guessed that if at all war were to break out in Europe between Germany and England, these islands were bound to be the point of attack