(Continued from page 5) motorium abet 1,000 yards south of the Eight Character Bridge. The Japanese defences were not strengthened afd no: reinforcements were available. Only a most tenacious defence saved the line. Following the Chinese retreat they cresset into Chinese territory but later withdrew under the commander's orders. The Japanese force, he said, were outnumbered by at least ten to one. Since then the work had been purely defence, alw waiting for the} Chinese' to be at point blank range before opening fire.
By a round-about route through shell battered Chapel, only age showing the 1932 and 1937 periods of destruction, the party reached the upper reaches of the Hongkew Creek whose western side was a shambles from shell biitsts and fiery dislodging of snipers from vantage points cove ing the Japanese communication line to the forth-west sector. Not, all had been eradicated and billets whined! over the car in discomforting welcome to the neighbotirhood of the front line advance outposts. Second Lieut. Ota, in cotnmiand of the right wing of the sector, had, kis headquarters in a strongly bust Chinese mortuary. Machine-gun nests were manned about the roof and.the surrounding buildings were being perpetually circled with binoculars. Every precatition was being taken for the safe-keeping of the party. About 500 yards away an aeroplane was diving low down on a smoking building and blazing a stream of machine-gun bullets.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.