This looked like business, and Newport became certain of this when shortly after noon came a radio containing advices as to the sinking of the steamship _West Point_ off Nantucket. Then at intervals up to midnight came other messages telling of the sinking of other vessels until the victims of the undersea craft numbered four British, a Dutch, and a Scandinavian vessel, one of them, the Halifax liner _Stephana_, a passenger-vessel, with Americans on board. Reports of vessels torpedoed, of open boats containing survivors afloat on the sea, followed one another swiftly until not only Newport but the entire country was aroused. Admiral Knight and Admiral Gleaves, who had been keeping the Navy Department at Washington in touch with every phase of the situation, beginning with the arrival of the U-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.