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would decide to defend their capital and how long it would take the Japanese to reach it. Such questions as whether the time had arrived to send up to Hankow for the winter clothes, forwarded there for safety in August, became of secondary importance. When to get out and how to get out was all that mattered. Some decided to join the ships leaving for Hankow; others decided to board the ships proceeding down river to Chinkiang, where they proposed to wait until the expected opening of the fortified boom, with which the Chinese had blocked the Yangtze lower down at Kiangyin. By the end of the month all foreigners had left, except such as had been able to arrange for accommodation on the few gunboats and commercial vessels, which were to stand-by in the Yangtze off Nanking, until the approaching wave of warfare had passed over, and except also a few newspaper correspondents and certain gallant missionaries, mostly American, who intended to remain in the city, refusing to desert the Chinese friends with whom they had so long associated.
In the opening days of December there was increasing evidence of the rapid approach of the Japanese forces. Much of the motor traffic, which during the days of the removal of the Government had roared down Chung Shan road, left by the highways for Kiangsi and Hunan; and there was a marked diminution of troop movement through the City. One by one the city gates were closed and filled in solid with earth and timber to the full depth of the wall, until only two were left ajar. The air raids increased in intensity. Throughout these trying days the excellent discipline maintained by the Chinese troops impressed onlookers. Later in Shanghai I again heard criticism of the way the troops acting under instructions burned the suburbs outside the city wall so as to provide a good field of fire for the defence of the town. Few nowadays probably remember that it was the Chinese who first gave currency to the expression "scorched earth".
Sounds of distant gun-fire were first heard on December 8th. By the following day all the members of my office staff were embarked on a ship which had been reserved for us. From the deck, on the morning of December 11th, shrapnel could be seen bursting over the South wall, on the far side of the city. Besides a number of barges and tugs, the collection of ships included two British gunboats, 'Scarab' and 'Cricket', two river steamers belonging to Messrs. Butterfield and Swire, three Standard Oil ships, two ships of the Asiatic