द इण्डियन स्ट्रगल / भारतीय स्वाधीनता संग्राम (नेताजी सुभाष चन्द्र बोस - ऐतिहासिक विश्लेषण)

150 THE INDIAN STRUGGLE
be present besides a jail-officer and usually some of the worst
police-officers would be detailed to conduct these interviews.
I had frequent trouble with them and had to put up with a
great deal of unpleasantness and on some occasions I had to
rebuke some of them for their impertinence. As a punish-
ment I was given orders of transfer to another prison (Ber-
hampore Jail) in the interior of the province where it would
be difficult for people to interview me. Neither at Alipore
nor at Berhampore did I have much trouble with the prison-
staff. Some of the Government orders were of course
humiliating, but for that we did not blame the prison-staff.
My trouble with the police-officers, however, continued at
Berhampore. Most of my time was spent in study and many
were the plans we discussed about the work that we would
do when we left prison once again. As the arrests continued
from day to day, the prison population began to increase to
our great delight. My stay at Berhampore did not last more
than two months. On January 25th, 1925, I suddenly
received orders of transfer to Calcutta. On my way I learnt
to my great surprise that my real destination was Mandalay
Prison in Upper Burma. At midnight I reached Calcutta and
was taken to the Lalbazar Police-Station to spend the night
there. The room in the police-station was a dirty hole and
thanks to mosquitoes and bugs, it was impossible to have a
wink of sleep. The sanitary arrangements were horribly
bad and there was no privacy at all. I then realised the truth
of what others had said before, namely, that if there is a hell
on earth, it is the Lalbazar Police-Station. As I lay down,
counting the number of beams in the ceiling to while away
the time, I heard familiar voices in an adjoining room. So
the good Government had sent me companions even there!
In the early hours of the morning when it was still dark, a
police-officer appeared on the scene. This was Mr. Lowman,
Assistant-Inspector General of Police, who, we learned later,
was to escort us to Mandalay. The doors of the cells were
opened and out came seven familiar faces, all bound for the
same destination. A surprise indeed!
Under cover of darkness, surrounded by armed guards, we
came out of the police-station. Two prison vans were standing