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with which we had been faced.
By the time we left we had trained over thirty teams, only half of which, however, operated in target areas and so could really be described as effective. I am afraid that they have now long since broken up and scattered, their supplies exhausted. Reports had come in of over fifty successful “jobs”, including the destruction of railway and road bridges, the derailment of trains and railway patrol vehicles, the sinking of launches, damage to lorries and sundry industrial plants. Some of these "jobs" were really a little bit out of our line, but suited to Chinese ideas. For instance, there was the comedian, who entered a cinema frequented by Japanese troops. He carried a bottle filled with grey powder, which of course was examined at the door where all Chinese entering the cinema would be searched. He explained the powder in the bottle was a special cure for the itch; the Japanese at that time had not learnt what ammonal looked like and the sentry did not know that inside the so-called itch powder was concealed a primer, a detonator, and a half-hour time-pencil. The Chinese farmer, so interested to come and see the film of the Almighty Imperial Japanese Army creating the East Asia Greater Prosperity Sphere took his seat, deposited his bottle under it, was “taken short", walked out to relieve himself, and failed to return. Within half an hour the Japanese discovered why!