-53 the preceding day, lost no time
in sending destroyers forth to the rescue, while already there was the
cheering word that the destroyer _Batch_ was on the scene and engaged in
rescue work.

The departure of the destroyers was a spectacle that brought thousands
of men, women, and children of Newport to the points of vantage along
the shore or to small craft of all sorts in which they kept as close to
the destroyers, preparing for their seaward flight, as they could. It
was Sunday, a day when crowds were at leisure, but it was also a day
when many of the officers and crew of the flotilla were on shore-leave.
They were summoned from all points, however, and within a short time
after the first call for help had been received the _Jarvis_, with
Lieutenant L. P. Davis in command, was speeding to sea at the rate
ordered by Admiral Gleaves, thirty-one knots an hour.

Inside half an hour the other destroyers shot out to sea at the same
speed as the _Jarvis_ while the spectators cheered them, and such as
were in small boats followed until the speeding craft had disappeared.
There was the _Drayton_--Lieutenant Bagley, who later was to know the
venom of the German submarine--the _Ericson_, Lieutenant-Commander W. S.
Miller; the _O'Brien_, Lieutenant-Commander C. E. Courtney; the
_Benham_, Lieutenant-Commander J. B. Gay; the _Cassin_,
Lieutenant-Commander Vernon; the _McCall_, Lieutenant Stewart; the
_Porter_, Lieutenant-Commander W. K. Wortman; the _Fanning_, Lieutenant
Austin; the _Paulding_, Lieutenant Douglas Howard; the _Winslow_,
Lieutenant-Commander Nichols; the _Alwyn_, Lieutenant-Commander John C.
Fremont; the _Cushing_, Lieutenant Kettinger; the _Cummings_,
Lieutenant-Commander G. F. Neal; the _Conyngham_, Lieutenant-Commander
A. W. Johnson, and the-mother ship, _Melville_, Commander H. B. Price.

Soon after the destroyers had passed into the Atlantic there came a
wireless message saying that twenty of the crew of the British steamship
_Strathdean_ had been taken on board the Nantucket light-ship. Admiral
Gleaves directed the movement of his destroyers from the radio-room on
the flag-ship. He figured that the run was about a hundred miles. There
was a heavy sea running and a strong southwest wind. There was a mist on
the ocean. It was explained by the naval authorities that the destroyers
were sent out purely on a mission of rescue, and nothing was said as to
any instructions regarding the enforcement of internationa