One Man and a World at War 195mark. Even if Bose had left home to become a sannyasi (an ascetic),
this police detective was certain it was not for religious reasons, but to
plot a mass revolution. The other alternative was that Bose had gone
abroad to seek foreign help for his country’s freedom. “He would never,
I think,” Janvrin concluded, “cease to strive his utmost to achieve what
has been his life’s aim—the complete in de pen dence of India.”^30
In Kabul, a hub of international espionage in the Second World
War, Subhas Chandra Bose faced an agonizing wait in the pursuit of
his life’s aim. Upon arrival in the Afghan cap ital on January 31, Rah-
mat Khan and his deaf- mute relative Ziauddin had found lodging in a
serai (inn) near the Lahori Gate. But what was to be the wanderer’s
next destination? After seeing their uncle off at Gomoh Station, Asoke
had remarked that Subhas seemed to be blazing the trail of Indian
revolutionaries toward Russia. Sisir had agreed with the bit about the
revolutionary trail but was convinced that, in the wartime context, it
led to Germany.^31 During the first few days in Kabul, Bhagat Ram alias
Rahmat Khan made a couple of futile attempts to establish contact
with the Soviet ambassador.^32
Bose then decided to take matters into his own hands; he barged
into the German Embassy. It was Germany and not the Soviet Union
that was at war with Britain, and there were Indian prisoners- of- war in
German and Ital ian custody. All that the Soviet Union had was a non-
aggression pact with Germany. The German minister in Kabul, Hans
Pilger, cabled the German foreign minister in Berlin on February 5:
“Advised Bose ur gently about the local Afghan security system after he
had visited me rashly at the embassy, asked him to keep himself hidden
amongst Indian friends in the bazaar and contacted the Russian Am-
bassador on his behalf.” The Russian envoy had expressed a rather bi-
zarre suspicion that there might be a British plot behind Bose’s wish to
travel through Russia—a plan to engender con flict between Russia and
Afghanistan. Pilger therefore thought it was “indispensable to take up
the matter with Moscow as a follow- up for making journey possible.”
He added that the Ital ian ambassador in Kabul had already informed
Rome.^33 On February 8 the Ital ian chargé d’affaires in Berlin spoke to
Ernst Woermann of the German Foreign Ministry, offering Italy’s good
of fices in Moscow to facilitate Bose’s journey to Germany via Russia. If