During the day we hid in bushes and behind trees, sleeping only when we could. At night we
walked or ran, keeping a careful lookout for Japanese soldiers. My shoes were soon worn out from
___1___ over rugged paths and mountains trails, my feet sore and bleeding. Then Mother took
an old shirt and wrapped it around my feet for shoes. How ___2___ that felt!
Our food consisted chiefly of black buns and whatever we could buy along the way with the
small amount of money that had escaped the eyes of the Japanese soldiers. Most of us came down
with severe cases of dysentery. We lost weight and became ___3___ to carry even the small
bundles of possessions we had brought along with us. Item after item was ___4___ along the
way to lighten our load.
We all had sore hands and feet, and our aching bodies were
___5___ from scratches and
open wounds. Our faces were badly burned by the sun, our clothes hung in shreds, and yet we had
to press on. If we stopped, the others ___6___ to leave us to die. We had all agreed to that at the
beginning of the trip.
One day, our flight to freedom almost came to ___7___ . Bone-weary, we had stopped in a
little shack along an overgrown path where we huddled gratefully inside two small rooms and fell
sound asleep. But not for long. Suddenly, there was a loud ___8___ as the doors were broken
down.
Chinese bandits! "Give us your money!" they shouted. We handed over the few things we had left. Some of the
bandits had been smoking opium, and it was obvious that they were half-crazed for more. They
looked at our possessions anxiously but saw that we had nothing much. Then, ___9___ , they
walked away.
As soon as the bandits were out of sight, we moved on. We understood that we were about ten
miles from the border, but we were so tired that even such a __10___ distance seemed like
halfway around the world. Would we ever make it?
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