"If Jack breaks for France, we need only signal Sheerness Fort. The Admiralty shall see to the rest," Barnes said. He said it distractedly, as he’d telescoped a brass perspective-glass to full length and was using it to squint at Shive Tor. "Not to worry, though—as we expected, he’s high and dry. There’s a ship-channel, you see, so that the Tor can be serviced by water, and Jack’s been dredging it deeper and deeper, so he can sail right up to the Tor with larger and larger vessels—but it’s no use during a spring tide. A longboat would scrape the bottom of that ditch this evening."