13 January Comrade Sen addressed us for twenty minutes. We had eaten breakfast, and Ah Kei made burping noises for he suffers from stomach ulcers. Comrade Ah Low was publicly reprimanded for muddling the accounts of the Protection Corps and the Sabotage Squad. We held a minute’s silence for Comrade Chong of the People’s Movement who has been hanged by the criminal government. His age was twenty-one and he had been to school for four years. He was eager to educate himself further, and in his spare time, when he was not slashing rubber trees, collecting food, distributing pamphlets, or otherwise working, he would read and study and attend meetings. He was caught by the pig-faced soldiers passing ammunition procured from a police post. Be peaceful, Comrade! You sacrificed your life gloriously for the Revolution! Thousands of young men will rise to take your place in the fight for freedom!

Ten new recruits are coming Inside for training. Some of them from Singapore.

31 January Comrade Sen has left to report to the Central Executive Committee on the situation in our area. There are rumours of changes in tactics this year. We have had much success; food and money have flowed in from the people, and we have done a great deal of work. The comrades were speaking of Sen. We are impressed with his bearing, and want to make him our model. He has been longer Inside than many.

In our self-criticism meeting this evening Ah Mao made us laugh. He was criticizing himself, and considered his chief fault to be secrecy. We roared with laughter. Ah Mao is a gossipy duck. News pours through his mouth as water through a leaky pot, I was criticized for being aggressive in bearing towards the workers, and too critical of new helpers.

17 February Our Corps Commander announced that a new teacher would soon arrive.

24 February Weather clear. Cut a thousand yards of wire (seven comrades). Went to Langtry Estate and warned the Tamil weeders to stop weeding. The head contractor promised to obey us. Ah Low again made a mistake in collecting subscriptions from the workers. His cousin, Big Dog Tsou, invited us to his house after work. We changed into our rubber tapper clothes and went. We ate meat dumplings and drank coffee. Big Dog Tsou then took us behind the rubber smoke-house to collect our rice and meat, and also gave us two katis of smoked ham, sausages, and some messages.

2 March At today’s meeting our Corps Commander informed us that we were blamed in our Red Star newspaper for not fulfilling our working plan last year. We were some thousands of trees behind plan, and our quota of executed traitors, estate managers, and running dogs, fell short of the target. The Flag of Merit has gone to the Segamat Unit in North Johore. We are said to be idle, afraid of rain and bad weather, and so on.