The Hour Before Dawn. Sara MacDonald

his slightly bumbling exterior lay a first-class brain.

      At weekends the family would drive down to the naval base for the swimming pool, evening barbecues, and films. It was less stuffy than the Tanglin Club, which had more than its fair share of aging expats and high-ranking service wives who loved rules.

      The Officers Club with a large pool faced out to the Straits of Malacca and looked down on the harbour and dry dock below. When the frigates were in, the navy would throw constant parties and Fleur never lost the thrill of being piped aboard. She would walk with Laura in front of Sam and her father, male eyes swivelled their way. The ships were often at sea for some time and any woman from fifteen to fifty was made to feel glamorous and witty. Sam was allowed to drink moderately as he was nearly eighteen. Fleur was not and Laura watched her like a hawk.

      It was an incident at a cocktail party on board a small naval frigate that brought David and Fleur together. As they were piped aboard the sun hung low over the Straits, the sky flaring and fired by scarlet and orange. When darkness came, it came swiftly: no dusk, just velvety blackness. Fleur and Sam stood with a group of young sub-lieutenants drinking on the top deck. Her brother was eagerly discussing sailing, and Fleur, a little awed by so much attention, was swallowing a mixed-fruit cocktail rather fast as she practised the art of flirting.

      She caught sight of her parents circulating from time to time and was impressed with her mother’s practised habit of throwing back her dark hair and laughing hugely; of putting a hand lightly on a young man’s arm and leaning towards him to catch his words, as if he was the most fascinating man in the room.

      Fleur wasn’t quite ready for that yet, but she did practise the head-tossing and smiling up into young, tanned faces. The more glasses of fruit juice she had the better she seemed to get at this. A small warm wind blew in to the harbour bringing with it the smell of spices and petrol and rotting vegetation. A plump sub-lieutenant kept topping her up from a jug snatched from a passing waiter. Sam, suddenly aware of Fleur flushed and laughing louder than usual, moved over to her.

      ‘Fleur, you’re not drinking, are you?’

      ‘No. Just fruit juice and mint. Promise.’

      ‘OK.’ He looked at her closely for a second and then turned back to the group of young men. Fleur leant over the rail and looked down at the dark water. It looked invitingly cool.

      ‘Do you ever swim from the ship?’ she asked one of the naval officers.

      ‘Bit of a way down,’ the plump one said, laughing. ‘It’s not that far,’ Fleur replied.

      Plump officer stared at her lazily. ‘I can’t see a girl doing

      it.’

      Fleur looked down, feeling dizzy, but it did not seem that much of a leap. No more than a diving board. She moved forward away from the crush of people.

      ‘You think I’m too scared to jump?’

      ‘I’ll put a bet on it.’

      The other officers stirred uneasily. ‘Come on, let’s go below and get something to eat, Fleur. Take no notice of Billy Bunter.’

      ‘Of course she won’t take any notice. She’s a girl.’

      Fleur moved fast, climbed the rail and put both her legs over. She wasn’t going to dive because her skirt would come up over her head and that would be undignified. She felt no fear at all, just exhilaration. She leapt into space.

      The officers hurtled to the rail and looked down. One moved to the jug and picked it up and smelt it.

      ‘You stupid bastard! You’ve been giving her Pimms. She’s only a kid…’

      David, making his way towards the group, saw Fleur leap over the side and plummet downwards. He took in the empty Pimms jug and the guilty and furtive fat officer. Fleur hit the water and disappeared. Someone was already undoing a lifebuoy. David leant over the rail with the other men, waiting for her head to appear. It did not.

      Fleur, plummeting through dark water, wondered vaguely but without panic why she was still effortlessly headed downwards. It was not an unpleasant feeling, just interesting.

      David threw his jacket off and dived, closely followed by the fat officer and Sam.

      Everyone else held their breath. Senior ranks, alerted, moved to the rail with sudden alarm, demanding to know what the hell was going on.

      Underwater, David saw Fleur now beginning to rise to the surface. He grabbed her and hauled her upwards, helped by the fat officer. As her head rose above the water she sobered abruptly, took a huge shaky breath, choking.

      Sam grabbed her under her armpits and kicked his way back to the ladder, where two naval ratings lifted her up onto the deck and wrapped her in a blanket. Laura bent to her daughter, relieved, angry and embarrassed in equal measure.

      The captain, furious, quickly assessed the situation and sent his junior officers to their quarters until he could deal with them. Peter Llewellyn turned to him without raising his voice.

      ‘If I accept an invitation I do so in the knowledge that my family are guests and as such my daughter is perfectly safe. Fleur does not drink. She knows that if she drinks she will be barred from all parties. There is a difference between high spirits and mindless stupidity. I do hope that your officers will be made fully aware that their crass behaviour could well have resulted in my fifteen-year-old daughter being drowned.’

      He turned, white-faced, and gathered his wife and children. The party came to an abrupt end. Uncomfortable, people drifted away, back down the gangplank to the club where they could eat dinner and gossip about the evening.

      Peter Llewellyn turned to David. ‘Thank you, David. You acted quickly. Go to the M.O. and get yourself a jab. The water is polluted. I’ll see you tomorrow.’

      ‘Sir,’ David said quietly, unnerved by his colonel’s anger, which he had never seen before.

      Fleur was being bundled into the car, still not entirely sober or realising quite what she had done. Sam said miserably, ‘Dad, it wasn’t Fleur’s fault, honestly. There’s so much fruit in those Pimms that you can’t taste the gin. Fleur doesn’t even like drink.’

      Laura, getting Fleur into a hot bath soon afterwards, did not want to know the details. Her two concerns were the fact that they had been the centre of a stupid and avoidable incident and Fleur, by leaping inanely into the polluted water, had caused this. She was abrupt and short with her daughter.

      It was Annie, the amah, who took Fleur hot chocolate and her father who sat on her bed while she wept with humiliation. Peter adored Fleur. He did not want her to grow up too quickly but neither did he want to deprive her of having fun. He wanted her to look back on this time in the Far East with excitement. His children were almost grown up, would soon be gone. This would be the last posting they would all have together.

      He also believed that people were basically decent. Tonight had been gross stupidity, not evil intent, but he advised Fleur to be more aware of the things young men got up to and what they handed her to drink.

      ‘If it had been one of Sam’s friends, I guess I would have been on my guard, Dad. But I was with you, so I didn’t think…’

      That was precisely why her father had been so angry.

      ‘I’ve rung the doctor,’ he said. ‘Go with your mother and get a jab tomorrow, just to be safe.’

      ‘Oh! Why did I jump? So stupid! Everyone will be laughing at me.’

      ‘No, they won’t,’ Peter smiled. ‘Sam’s friends will envy your panache and bravery in leaping that far for a bet.’

      But Fleur was not thinking of Sam’s friends, she was wondering what Lt David Montrose thought of her.

      The next morning the plump naval officer appeared outside Peter Llewellyn’s office. He apologised profusely. He had called to let the colonel know he was resigning his commission and that no other officer had been