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

showed their doubt about it, and presumed to imagine that Nepal was, like Tibet,
inhabited by primitive people, and was an insignificantly small country of foreigners. I
was hard put to it to convince them by argument that the truth was far otherwise.
As I conveyed the news of war, from day to day, to my fellow-prisoners, plain
and unvarnished, as it came to me, the partisans of Turkey, our friends—the Mussulmans
often showed me their bitterest hatred. And for the same reason, when I presented the
English side of the war faithfully, Mr. Barrie and the Superintendent were equally put out
with me. The Superintendent at the time was a jingo imperialist, and he looked upon my
work as an act of wickedness. He watched me with a severe eye enemy of his country.
Just at the time the Andamans felt the first shock of the war; the report had come that a
German submarine was plying in its waters, and officers had been arranging the defence
of Port Blair against the attack of the enemy. The prisoners in the jail were all put upon
the work of preparing tarpaulins and similar material to shield the British regiments from
the sudden onslaught. The officers became still more adverse to me in that crisis. For, in
order to prepare gunny-bags, the prisoners had to be put on the task of picking oakum
work live or six times as much as they had done before. They had each to pick ten pounds
of oakum every day, where before they picked only two pounds of it. The prisoners were
put to that hard work under pain of severe thrashing. The political prisoners were few in
number —only those on transportation for life. All the rest were sent out to India after
our third strike. The political prisoners were themselves appointed by Mr. Barrie to
supervise the work, and to exact it from the prisoners. If we proved helpful to the
authorities in exacting work from the prisoners, there was every chance of our being
relieved of all work and of being appointed warders. Barrie saw this and delegated the
task to us. He told us "Do nothing, but see to it that these youngsters give us their full
day's work." And this device of Mr. Barrie proved a success. Unfortunately, the prisoners
given in my charge, I discovered, could give no more than three pounds a day each, of
picked oakum. And they complained that they were not bound to give more work as the
present war was not theirs and India had nothing to do with it. "Take from us, of course,
our normal quota of two pounds a day. We are bound to give it. But to compel us to turn
out ten pounds because of the war, is a task that we are not going to put up with." What
answer could I give them on this? I myself thought that they were in the right. None dare
thrash the prisoners under my charge. The prisoners knew it full well. Therefore, they
would do their normal quota and something more, and stopped there. In the evening Mr.
Barrie found out that my section had done much less than ten pounds for every prisoner,
but had done much more than his share of two pounds a day. Mr. Barrie, therefore, began
his barking. He stripped the Tindal of his belt and made things hot for me. In the night the
Mussulman petty officers reported' to him that I was preaching sedition to my section of
prisoners. Next day the Superintendent deposed me from my new office, and, by way of
punishment, put me on picking oakum. I put on my strip of suspender and began the
work. At the end of the day I could hardly do one pound with the utmost of my labour.
When it was found that I did just as much work as I could, and would not receive any
help to fill my quota from other prisoners in my section, the other prisoners also ceased
overworking themselves. I was, therefore, segregated from them and put again in my cell
on the top-floor of block number seven. I was asked there to resume my task of picking
oakum.