so sorry... heres the legend of datuk...
The last sultan of singapore was ousted, and exiled himself on tekong, i heard from my OC, this old Master Warrent, who'd just recently made senior warrent we've heard...
Seems after this sultan died on ubin, his body was brought back to mainland singapore for burial. B4 his death, he was known to all on tekong as datuk, as he was still influencial enough. One year, a lot of the villagers dreamt about datuk, telling them his birth anniversary was coming up, and he wanted to watch chinese opera. Seems most people ignored it, and a village promptly burnt to the ground. After this, the villagers got a opera troupe in to perform, and every year after that. When I was there for BMT, there was some sort of opera thingy performing during one of the days... so i guess there is some truth to it.
The villagers also have claimed to see datuk wandering along the piers, now known as the old pier, not the tekong ferry terminal. n fact people still claim to see him now and then. Once the villagers had obeyed him, and brought in the opera every year on his birthday, he supposedly watched over all the inhabitants of tekong. During the jap occupation, the japs gathered up the villagers and lined them up along the jetty to be excecuted. The villagers were wailing "Datuk Tolong Datuk Tolong(Datuk please Datuk please)" The japs, to show their patriotism, they raised a rising sun flag b4 the excecutions, but the flag string snapped and the flag fell down to the ground. It was raised again, but snapped again. The 3rd time it was raised, it snapped yet again. By then, the japs who were also superstitious, were feeling uneasy, and asked the interpretors what was going on. That when the interpretors relayed the story fo datuk to the japs, and the japs decided to spare the villagers for fear of offending Datuk.
Now my personal experience with Datuk is in a sense, astounding. Astounding enuf that i now firmly believe in the legend. My BMT was the obese batch. Every other week we had to undergo a sort of classification test, where criterias were to be met to be able to book out. For 3 successive tests, i was confined the whole weekend. Then, for the 4th test, that weekend I had a friend throwin' a party. I really wanted to book out badly... 'cause i wanted to go. Well... the criteria was to either lose at least 15kg from my original weight i think, pass the 2.4km run, or do at least 4 chin ups. I only lost 8 kg b4 i came up against an invisible barrier... my chin ups i managed 3, from previously 0, my 2.4km run, last timing was 13.3something... i was determined to pass it, but i knew i was gonna be confined... and i was very sad. As I ran, i was saying under my breathe "Datuk Tolong" and my timing for that day miraculously was 11.34. It was barely a week since i ran 13.3something and i managed a 2 minute improvement within less than a week! incredible? my platoonmates all said i was suddenly running very fast that day. So i met one of 3 criterias, but it wasn't enuf. I needed to meet at least 2. Well.... i was still disappointed, but feeling good about passing the 2.4 in good time.
That night i did guard duty. Next day, when i returned to my bunk, the 1st thing my buddy told me was: "Buddy! you're going home!" i told him to stop joking, but he told me it was true. Seems the OC had suddenly revised the system... instead of meeting fixed criterias, he was allowing those who had shown significant improvements to book out, and those who met the criterias, but who hadn't improved much since the start, were confined. When I heard that, I knew Datuk had heard, and helped. I got to go home, n go to the party. Ever since, I've told all my friends going into tekong BMT about datuk, and how they never know they might be able to get a little extra help from him.

Terima Kasih Datuk!