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SECTION TRAINING
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NINE
There was a less charming angle to the camp followers as well, which would eventually
lead to tragic consequences. Packs of children would enter the gazetted grounds or hang
around when blanks were used in maneuvering areas to pick up the ejected shells for the
brass bases to be recycled as a cottage industry. As they became bolder, they would follow
up live-firing exercises, which offered vastly more brass from the empty cases and in due
course even material from unexploded blinds and mortar shell fragments. SAFTI had to
institute a continuous public education programme around the training areas in the hope
of deterring this dangerous practice, because the warning sign boards along the boundaries
only served to deter the faint-of-heart to the advantage of the bold. It became a standing
operating procedure to dispatch boat and road patrols before live-firing commenced, partly
to alert those who had accidentally strayed into the grounds and partly to deter deliberate
entry. However, it was by no means a fool proof process.
SAFTI’s footprint grew rapidly around the Jurong area. Among the economic beneficiaries
that had a fairly long run of good times was the laundry and a restaurant at 15½ milestone
Upper Jurong Road and several food stalls at Tuas. SAFTI’s official laundry service was
provided by the Prison’s Department, which not only mangled and mixed up uniforms but
also frequently returned items with holes burnt into them. When this happened to bed sheets
and pillowcases it was not a problem for the trainees because the QM store would replace
them, but it was quite another thing with uniforms because of inspections. Many trainees
had also taken the trouble to alter the issued uniforms for a better fit and it was a routine
to drop them off at the laundry on the way home for the weekend and pick them up on the
way back a week or so later, or even within a day in urgent cases. The laundry staff was soon
able to identify the trainees by their regimental numbers and it was a mutually beneficial
arrangement. When there was no night training, trainees would sometimes combine a visit
to the restaurant and the laundry. However, there were several occasions when fights broke
out. In one instance, there was clearly some secret society activity involved and several
first intake trainees demonstrated their marked preference for discretion over valour. The
weight of evidence suggests that somehow, the trainees had given offence, because one of
the characteristics of secret societies was that they preferred to keep a low profile in their
dealings with the public, unless provoked.
There were no reports of untoward events from the food stalls at Tuas, a village on the east
bank of Sungei Tuas (now possibly the Southern Tuas Basin, the river and village being
completely erased by reclamation and industrial development). Ramshackle as the wooden
buildings were, the seafood and other village fare like garden fresh vegetables, ‘hor fan’,
Hokkien mee, char kueh teow, kueh chap, smoked pigs’ ears and fried-egg and seafood soup
were a real treat, all for a pittance.
Alternative sources of food from those of SAFTI cookhouse were welcome. The military
fare could be wolfed down after a morning or afternoon of relentless physical effort, but not
as a meal to be savoured unhurried. Throughout the training of the initial batch in SAFTI
(and from evidence thereafter) there was little improvement in the culinary capabilities of