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