"Nothing We Can Do . . ."

The officers and men of General Fu Tso-yi's command are among the best in China. Fifteen months ago, Fu's crack troops swept the Reds out of the vital North China outpost city of Kalgan. They turned with high morale to rebuilding the destruction left by the retreating Communists. But elsewhere in China, the war had gone badly. General Fu and some of his men had been called east to defend the Peiping area, thus reducing the defenses of Kalgan. In the outpost city a fortnight ago, a TIME correspondent found a solemn mood.

At Nankow Pass, where last November the turreted guns of an armored train had dominated the gateway to Kalgan, there was now a long hospital train waiting to pick up the wounded from a battle raging to the east, at Yenching. Lieut. General Lu Yingling and Major General Li Ming-ting, two of Fu's best field commanders, were dead. Red cavalry marauders moved freely in adjacent Jehol province (see cut). In Kalgan, staff officers muttered: "The Communists keep growing stronger. Nothing we can do seems to stop them."

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