In his 1957 letter to Walter Lord, Third Officer Groves mentioned
figures
moving on one of the nearby icebergs, while the Californian searched
the area for survivors. Lord looked at them and concluded they were
seals - and he was probably correct. But what if he wasn't? Groves
was never entirely certain.
Titanic historian George Behe came across this story,
published less than two weeks after the Titanic disaster:
New York World
April 26, 1912
STEAMER SIGHTED HUDDLED GROUP OF DEAD ON ICEBERG
The North German Lloyd liner Prinzess Irene, from Genoa, reached
her pier in Hoboken at 11 o'clock last night and reported that
on Wednesday last she had intercepted a wireless message between
two ships, the names of which were not learned, to the effect that
one of them, in passing fifty miles from the scene of the Titanic
disaster, had sighted an iceberg on which were the bodies of
more than a dozen men.
All wore lifebelts and the bodies were huddled in groups at the
base of the berg. It was the opinion of the officers of the ship
sighting the gruesome scene that the men had climbed on the mass
of ice, perhaps within an hour of the foundering of the Titanic,
and had frozen to death as they were swept to the southward. The
fact that the bodies were huddled in groups led the captain of the
ship to suppose the men gathered close together to keep warm. No
attempt was made to take off the bodies.