306 HIS MAJESTY’S OPPONENT
roar of the bomber’s engine became louder, “Chandra Bose Kakkaa
[Excellency].” Once the plane reached Canton, one Colonel Tada ex-
plained further to Ayer what had happened. Netaji had left Saigon on
August 17 and his plane had reached Touraine (Da Nang) the same
evening. There, Netaji and his fellow passengers had rested for the
night. They set off again on the morning of August 18 and reached
Taipei safely early in the afternoon. Soon after takeoff from Taipei, the
plane crashed.^5
“Did it crash into the sea?” Ayer asked. If the answer was yes, he
could persuade himself it was a contrived story to cover the trail of
another great escape. To his disappointment he was told the plane had
crashed on land near the airfield. General Tsunamasa Shidei, the Japa-
nese expert on Russian affairs who was the other VIP traveling with
Netaji, had been killed instantly. Netaji and Habibur Rahman had been
injured, and were taken immediately to the nearest hospital. “Our med-
ical of fi cers did their best for Netaji, but in spite of all that, Netaji.. .”
The Colonel’s voice choked. “Is Habib alive or is he also... ?” asked
Ayer, and learned that Habib had survived. Ayer demanded to be taken
at once to Taipei so that he could see for himself what had happened.
His plane, however, halted at Taichu, not Taipei, on its way to Tokyo,
apparently because of adverse weather conditions. “No Indian in India
or East Asia,” Ayer bitterly told the Japanese, “is going to believe your
story of Netaji’s plane crash.”^6
On August 23, after a five- day delay, the Domei agency of Japan
broadcast the news of Netaji’s death. In Tokyo, there was another ago-
nizing wait for more than two weeks for further news from Taipei. Ayer
remained in close touch with Rama Murti, the head of the Indian Inde-
pen dence League in Japan, and stayed as the guest of the wife and
daughter of Anand Mohan Sahay, a member of Netaji’s Provisional
Government. On September 8, Ayer and Rama Murti were told at the
Japanese imperial army headquarters that Habib had arrived in Tokyo
from Taipei with Netaji’s ashes, and that he would meet them later in
the day. The urn containing the ashes was brought out and handed
over to Ayer. “They first put a loop of white cloth, seven or eight inches
wide, round my neck,” Ayer writes, “and then the Colonel placed the
urn in the loop and I held it with both hands.” The urn was brought to