294 HIS MAJESTY’S OPPONENT
the story, “for the trek from Sittang to Moulmein en route to Bangkok.
Major General Zaman Kiani was asked to take charge of the party. He
ordered us to fall in and gave us instructions as to how our party, in-
cluding Netaji, should march and how air- raid alarm would be given
and how we should immediately disperse on either side of the road and
take cover.”^126 The Janbaz (“Suicide”) unit of the Subhas Brigade had
joined the retreating column, and Netaji’s group was now nearly a
thousand strong. “Such was his spirit of discipline,” Mohammad Za-
man Kiani con firms, “that, to better arrange the march of the column
and deal with related prob lems, he [Netaji] put me in complete charge
and also put himself under my command for the duration of the
march.”^127
On reaching Moulmein, the Ranis were put on a train under the
charge of A. C. Chatterji and Shaukat Malik. The train could move only
at night and had to be kept under cam ou flage colors on sidings during
the day. Bose decided to wait for his X Regiment, which had miracu-
lously extricated itself almost intact from Pyinmina and was headed
toward Moulmein.^128 After being assured of the safety of his Imphal
veterans, Netaji resumed his journey by road toward Bangkok. “That
army is beaten which considers itself to be beaten,” he told his follow-
ers, quoting Marshal Ferdinand Foch. He and his soldiers had not
withdrawn from the fight, but were simply moving from one battlefield
to another. Had not Clausewitz said that war has many surprises?
There was still reason to fight on.^129
If General Slim could gloat over turning “defeat into victory” in a
military sense,^130 Bose was already considering how the INA could re-
turn the compliment on a po lit i cal plane. In his first public address
upon reaching Thailand on May 21, 1945, Netaji drew on examples
from the his tory of Turkey and Ireland in urging Indians to fight on for
freedom. “It may be that we shall not go to Delhi via Imphal,” he told
those he had roused to unprecedented pa tri otic fervor with his slogan
“Chalo Delhi!” “But the roads to Delhi are many,” he assured them,
“like the roads to Rome. And along one of these many roads we shall
travel and ultimately reach our destination, the metropolis of India.”^131
Bose was naturally disappointed that Indian soldiers had once again