Surrounded by a strong escort of soldiers, the two men walked (or rather marched) to the nearest telephone, and rang up the local offices of the Asiatic Petroleum Company, and H. M. Consulate-General. Both quickly set plans in motion for the release of the two men and their families, Three members of the local staff of the A.P.C. speeded out to Chapoo by car to visit their colleagues. and do all they could to secure their freedom. It was these three knights errant who told the "North-China Daily News" about the incident immediately after their return yesterday.
"When we arrived at Chapoo," they said, "we found that the women and children had already been released, and had been allowed to return to Shanghai in the hire car. We found both men in the rest house under armed guard. There was also one other man staying at the guest house, who, in order to cheer up the captives,' suggested that they should have a game of mahjongg with their guards.
"We told them that we would try to get them out. and then left for military headquarters. As we were leaving, one of the soldiers, evidently suspecting that we were helping the two men to make a clean getaway,' pointed his pistol threateningly at us. Arrived at headquarters, we—infer-viewed the officer in charge, and went with him to the hospital to see the injured man. He was groaning loudly, but his injuries did not seem very serious.
"We then went back to headquarters, but further talking failed to secure the release of the two men, so we returned to the Rest House.
Both men gave us reassuring message єs to their wives, and with that we left for Shanghai. The men mere treated very well by the military authorities, but were kept under an armed. guard wherever they went. Hoping, no doubt, to restore the holiday spirit to the two captives. the officer in charge told them that they could bathe—provided that they left their trousers behind as security."
The latest that could be discovered last night was that the two men were still being detained, but that they would probably be released over the week-end, Ownership of Islands to be Discussed Later, Moscow, July 2.
Satisfactory solution. of the incident on June 30, when Japanese and Manchoukuo forces sank a Soviet gunboat on the Amur River, has been reached.
'A statement to this effect was made to-day by the Japanese Ami r, Mr. M. Shigemitsu, at the conclusion of a conversation with M, Maxim Litvinoff, the Soviet Foreign Commissar.
The Soviet Government, the Ambassador said, bad agreed. to ' the immediate withdrawal of its troops from e islets of Bolshoi and Sennuha upon an assurance that Manchoukuo would not have troops or boats in that neighbourhood.—Reuter.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.