Checkmate!

    “It’s stopped!”  {meaning the automatic distress signal the Rook is transmitting off shore}
    “The ship’s come for us!”
    “It’s too soon. Wait here, I’ll check, could be trouble.”

                         {Number 42, Number 19 and Number 6 - Checkmate}

    I think that if it had been the ship arriving, the group of escapees would have had to have met the vessel half away at the very least, seeing as the tide was out at the time. As a matter of fact it was much the same except in reverse, when Number 6 had attempted to escape The Village by boat in ‘Free For All,’ the tide was in. Number 6 was eventually forced to abandon the craft when the Guardian appeared on the scene. He was then over powered by the Guardian, having been half drowned and half suffocated, and taken in tow by three Guardians. Moments after, the tide had gone out, as a taxi towing a Red Cross Trailer is seen racing across the sand!

Be seeing you