Raid
At dawn, the RCMP was poised to move in and the members were stunned to see that the Samarkanda was heeled over on its side. RCMP boats charged into the tiny bay, sirens and loudspeakers blazing. The smugglers fled into the bush. Within a few hours, 21 men were arrested including three Americans. Missing were William Perka and Paul Nelson. U.S. agents arrested Roy Thompson on Mount Constitution in Washington where he had established a radio station for the enterprise.
As the tide came back in, the Samarkanda refloated itself, none the worse for wear. A prize crew from HMCS Qu'Appelle boarded and got engines started. Once the cargo of 634 bales was reloaded, the Qu'Appelle escorted the Samarkanda back to Victoria, British Columbia. The Samarkanda was filmed proceeding at good speed suggesting that the engines were not as damaged as the crew later testified.
Perka and Nelson remained at large in the uninhabited wilderness of Vancouver Island relying on Perka's Navy survival skills. All they found to eat was a frog and ferns. After eight days, they surrendered to an RCMP patrol boat which was waiting for them.
Read more about this topic: R. V. Perka, Background
Famous quotes containing the word raid:
“Each venture
Is a new beginning, a raid on the inarticulate
With shabby equipment always deteriorating
In the general mess of imprecision of feeling.”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)
“John Brown and Giuseppe Garibaldi were contemporaries not solely in the matter of time; their endeavors as liberators link their names where other likeness is absent; and the peaks of their careers were reached almost simultaneously: the Harper’s Ferry Raid occurred in 1859, the raid on Sicily in the following year. Both events, however differing in character, were equally quixotic.”
—John Cournos (1881–1956)