Some passengers were playing cards in the second-class smoking-room when the Titanic hit the iceberg. It was Sunday night, quite late, and most people had gone to bed. One card-player had seen the iceberg go by a few minutes before, 'towering above the decks'. He pointed it out to the others: they watched it briefly, then went back to their game. No one was interested enough to go out and take a closer look. One man, indicating his glass of whisky, turned to a bystander and suggested he run along the deck to see if any stray pieces of ice had come on board.

LRB 4 December 1986 | PDF Download