The BF's Close Encounters of the Third Kind (Part 1)

We all know how Tekong is famous for being, well, a spooky place. So obviously, what's an army blog without any spooky stories right? Here, I'd like to share the first of several spooky encounters The BF had while in Tekong.

It was a dark and stormy night... Ok that was lame. Back to the real story. =x

During his BMT, The BF had a habit of talking to me for an least an hour every night after lights out. Yes, every single night without fail, even though he'd need to wake up at 5 a.m. the next morning and often, because of training, they wouldn't have lights out until midnight.

The thing was, every so often there would be an officer or a sergeant coming up to patrol the bunks, to make sure that none of the men were awake and engaging in rule-breaking like talking on the phone, which of course The BF was doing night after night. So what he did was to hide his phone under his pillow to block out its light and use an earpiece to talk to me. Occasionally, while we were talking halfway, he would suddenly whisper, "Shhhhhh" and I would know that meant that there was someone patrolling the bunks. We would both keep quiet until he spoke again and told me his officer/sergeant had left.

So one night, I was talking to him, when he gave the usual "Shhhhhh" halfway through our conversation. We both fell silent as I waited for him to speak again. And I waited... and waited... and waited. The BF didn't speak for more than 10 minutes, which was odd, because the normal "waiting time" was usually less than 3 minutes.

So I risked asking him, "What's wrong? Are you still there?"

The BF whispered back, "Shhhhhh. Don't talk yet. He's not gone yet."

We waited another 10 minutes. By this time, I was growing really impatient. But The BF suddenly whispered again, "You hold on. I'm going outside the bunk to take a look. Something's wrong."

So I waited for just a short while this time before his voice came back, sounding perfectly normal. "It's ok, the lieutenant's gone already."

"Why he take so long? Wah lau. Anal officer is it?" I pouted.

"Nah. Don't know why. Never mind lah," The BF replied. Then he immediately changed the topic and we chatted for a while more before he said he had to go to bed. I didn't think much of the incident.

The next day, in the afternoon, he called me while he was having a smoking break.

"Dear, remember what happened last night? We were waiting very long fot that lieutenant I saw to leave, remember?" he asked me.

"Yeah, why?"

He then explained to me what really happened; what he didn't want to tell me then last night for fear of worrying me or spooking me out.

Apparently, The BF's bunk was on the top floor (the fourth) of his company, Bravo. His bunk was also situated right at the end of the corridor, just next to the toilets, furthest away from the one and only staircase leading up to their floor. All the bunks were built this way - a window, the door, and then another window on the other side of the door. For The BF's bunk, it would look like this from the outside:



Forgive the ugly amateurish drawing, I'm not blessed with artistic talent.


So anyway, while he was speaking to me, he saw a guy dressed in No. 4, with the bars of a first lieutenant across his shoulders, walk past window 1 as illustrated in my drawing. That was when he said "Shhhhhh" and we both kept quiet. From past experience, the patrolling officer would walk past both windows, check the toilets, and then walk back past his bunk and leave. This time though, the officer walked past window 1, but The BF never saw him go past window 2.

So he kept me waiting, thinking that perhaps the officer was up to something sneaky and hiding and listening just outside the door. When I spoke to him for the first time, he told me to keep quiet because he still hadn't seen the officer go past window 2, or even walk back past window 1, so he assumed the guy was right outside the door.

But when we waited another 10 minutes, he began to feel something was not right. That was when he decided to pluck up his courage and go outside and check. If the officer was really outside and stopped him, he would just say that he was going to the toilet.

So he went outside, and surprisingly, there was no one at all along the entire corridor. He immediately knew something was wrong then, but he went to the toilets and risked a check, even though he hadn't seen the officer walk past window 2. The toilets were empty as well.

That was when The BF realised he'd probably seen something he wasn't supposed to see. Like I illustrated, anyone who walked to his bunk would have to walk past it again to get back to the stairs. This "lieutenant" had just vanished into thin air.

During his smoking break, before he called me, he related the incident to his platoon sergeant laughingly, brushing it off as his overactive imagination. But his PS remained perfectly serious and told him, "You don't know meh? Every batch sure at least got one recruit see that guy. The story is that he died in Tekong, but for some reason he didn't stop doing his duty and he still continues to patrol the company. Don't worry, he's harmless. In fact, we think he watches over the recruits by doing that."

The BF broke out into cold sweat. "Wah lau eh. So many recruits and I am the one to kena him."

But anyway, that was the first and last time he saw that "lieutenant", to his great relief. Little did he know how many other spooky encounters he would have in his next 2 years in Tekong.