As
I strolled through the town, there were more smells of opium. Everywhere
in the streets was the smell of opium. Down by the river, I saw animal
skins being dipped and soaked in the water and one was a fine dog skin. In
one place, I saw rice or corn being stored, as a donkey with its eyes wrapped
with a cloth and a horse were going round and round threshing the grain.
The poor animals get blind threshing.
On
my walk, I saw that there were many troops on the road to Kalgan. On the
walls were lanterns and everywhere these were papered with Manchurian and
Japanese flags crossed on each other. The streets here are full of
soldiers with fixed bayonets; I passed a geisha girl, showing the Japanese had
arrived. Theatre crowds were on one side of the street. They were
singing: “God save Manchukuo soldiers and officers”. There were
lots of singsong girls and Japanese soldiers.
What
luck! There are great events here. The streets are full of Japanese
and Manchukuo flags. The Japanese have decided to make this Chinese town
and region part of Manchukuo. The town itself has 15,000 soldiers.
Thousands of Japanese soldiers are assembled here and many have left on the road
to Kalgan over which we travel on tomorrow.
I
am witnessing the changeover of a big district from China to Manchukuo.
There are barbed-wire entanglements just outside the hotel. There are two
roads to Kalgan to where we go back; over one 200 Japanese lorries have
travelled; the other is infested by bad bandits.
These
were the final words that Gareth wrote in his narrative before he was captured
by bandits and murdered.
If
you have enjoyed this transcript from Margaret Siriol Colley's book: Gareth
Jones - A Manchukuo Incident then by purchasing a copy you can follow the
author's thorough investigation into the international political intrigues
behind his eventual murder.
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