This was the fifth night of the Titanic’s maiden voyage to New York, and it was already clear that she was not only the largest but also the most glamorous ship in the world. Even the passengers’ dogs were glamorous. John Jacob Astor had brought his Airedale Kitty. Henry Sleeper Harper, of the publishing family, had his prize Pekingese Sun Yat-Sen. Robert W. Daniel, the Philadelphia banker, was bringing back a champion French bulldog just purchased in Britain. Clarence Moore of Washington also had been dog-shopping, but the fifty pairs of English foxhounds he had bought for the Loudoun Hunt weren’t making the trip.

That was all another world to Frederick Fleet. He was one of six lookouts carried by the Titanic, and the lookouts didn’t worry about passenger problems. They were the ‘eyes of the ship’, and on this particular night Fleet had been warned to watch especially for icebergs.

So far, so good. On duty at 10 o’clock… a few words about the ice problem with lookout Reginald Lee, who shared the same watch… a few more words about the cold… but mostly just silence, as the two men stared into the darkness.

Now the watch was almost over, and still there was nothing unusual. Just the night, the stars, the biting cold, the wind that whistled through the rigging as the Titanic raced across the calm, black sea at 22.5 knots. It was almost 11.40 p.m. on Sunday 14 April 1912.

Suddenly Fleet saw something directly ahead, even darker than the darkness. At first it was small (about the size, he thought, of two tables put together), but every second it grew larger and closer. Quickly Fleet banged the crow’s-nest bell three times, the warning of danger ahead. At the same time he lifted the phone and rang the bridge.

‘What did you see?’ asked a calm voice at the other end.

‘Iceberg right ahead,’ replied Fleet.

‘Thank you,’ acknowledged the voice with curiously detached courtesy. Nothing more was said.