Warning him that his next route te Hungjao would have to be via Siccawei because of the new Chinese trench across Rockhill Ave, the soldiers let Mr. Souter continue out Hungjao Road.
Hungjao Road was alive with Chinese soldiers, he said. Asked if they were marching or giving any signs of retreat, Mr. Souter said "Oh no. They were all busy digging in, constructing and setting up barbed-wire barriers, and apparently had no intention of Jeaving very soon." No bombing was in progress in that vicinity at the time, the noise of war coming from farther north by Soochow Creek, he said.
He noticed that some homes in Hungjao Road had been damaged somewhat by the war and that many of them seemed to be occupied by Chinese soldiers. The Blind School had been badly damaged and small groups of Chinese houses were in reins, apparently due to bombing.
When he reached the Hungjao exchange, he found that the building bad been damaged in the south-east gomer by a shell which had made something of a/¢rater in the lawn. The damage was small. The building had long since been evacuated, the work there being shifted to the Lucerne exchange.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.