10/05/2026 – The Great Sandy Desert (3)
Monty’s Dark Plan
While he drives to meet Eddy, Monty tells Tiger that he thinks they should cover the truck that has the prisoners with petrol and set it alight – with the prisoners in it. That will remove all the evidence. Tiger is perfectly happy with this approach.
They struggle to find where Eddy has parked the truck with the prisoners, driving around for more than an hour before finding the rock behind which Eddy had parked. During that time, Mortimer Wycroft continuously tries to escape from his bonds. Eddy has to keep tying him and his daughter back up.
Monty tells Eddy their plan and he is opposed to the idea, not liking burning the prisoners alive. Monty says one of his daughter has a group of miners hunting for them. At that moment, Wycroft calls Monty a “fat fucker” and Tiger punches him out.
Burning the Prisoners
Eddy continues to argue for keeping the truck as a spare and keeping the prisoners alive. Monty checks the truck, but it is not a Daimler truck and has signs of wear and tear. It is likely to be a liability for their journey, it would be better to burn it. Eddy points out the truck will explode if they set it on fire and Tiger decides to syphon the fuel out of it and use that to set it on fire. Eddy, frustrated, refuses to help them and just watches.
When he starts throwing petrol on the prisoners, one of the girls calls out for him to stop, but he carries on. The girls go from angry to terrified, offering to help them and do anything they want, including sexual services. Monty pours a line of petrol from the truck and sets it alight – the prisoners burning to death, screaming.
Eddy is horrified, while Monty goes on a rant saying they were forced to do this after their mission to just capture something the man owned turned into a kidnapping. He then drives over to the place agreed with Bainbridge to meet them in the morning.
Going to Bed Early
Jeziah discusses how quickly they are depart. They could leave that evening, but Bainbridge points out he has been hauling things most of the day and will need some sleep before driving through the night. He goes to bed now, as do most of the other Investigators, although Agatha and Cassandra dwell at the bar for a while first.
Friday, 21 June 1935
Early Start
At the inn, Cassandra, Jeziah and the others get up about 6am and start their journey early, after being well rested. They drive to the rendezvous point with Monty and the others. Monty and Tiger tell Jeziah that they dropped the prisoners off 50 miles away. They won’t get back for some time.
Bainbridge takes out the map and shows them his plan. They will head south and then east until they reach the dry lakes, then follow the lakes south to the Canning Stock Route. They will follow the Route north until they reach approximately the area they are aiming for. He has a compass for navigation. He suggests they drive by night and in the mornings and evenings, but rest during the hottest part of the day.
He asks more about what they are looking for, and Jeziah tells him they are looking for some ruins. Eddy says they are archaeologists.
The Great Sandy Desert
They argue about who will go in which truck. After a while they agree for the first truck that carries mostly food, to be driven by Bainbridge and Tiger, with Agatha in the back. The second truck that has mostly water, will be driven by Jeziah and Cassandra, with Alex in the back. The third truck with mostly petrol, is driven by Eddy and Monty, with Zalkador in the back.
They set off and soon leave the vicinity of Cuncudgerie and into the flat, featureless plain of the Great Sandy Desert. The vegetation becomes very sparse and the ground becomes dusty white sand. They start off following each other, but the dust from the truck in front becomes too much to follow and they are forced to travel side by side. The ground is uneven and they have to stick to around 20-30 mph in order to keep at a safe, steady pace. They see a hill called Mount McPherson that is over 40 miles away, because the ground is so flat and featureless.
The Dangers of Australia
Around midday, Bainbridge pulls up and says it is time to stop. They arrange the truck in a circle and then put a piece of tarpaulin over the gap between them, forming a cool rest area. They eat, drink and rest, though someone remains on watch at all times. At one point, Monty throws the dregs of his tea into the sand, only to find a snake rises from the sand and hisses at him.
Monty freezes and Bainbridge tells him to stay still until he is able to throw something over the snake and they all back away. Bainbridge then points out how many poisonous snakes and spiders there are in Australia, advising them to always check before they go to the toilet. They will need to do a snake and spider check before setting up camp. Their guide takes great pleasure in scaring them with stories about gruesome deaths from poisonous creatures.
Around 5pm in the afternoon, they spot a column of smoke. Bainbridge tells them that’s the Abos – the Aboriginals, the natives who lived in Australia before the Westerns came. Best to avoid them.
Damaged Truck
They break up the camp and continue their journey, with the drivers swapping from Bainbridge, Jeziah and Eddy to Tiger, Cassandra and Monty. They drive east into the night and it gets surprisingly cold. At one point, Tiger starts to drive too fast and fails to spot a stone that he drives over. A tire is burst and the axle is damaged. The darkness and the cold makes repairs awkward as they have to crank the truck up. Monty has to remove the entire axle and try to fix the warp in it, but he does not have the right tools. He decides to remove the axle and rely on the front wheel drive for now, which will require them to drive slower.
They continue onwards at a slower and more cautious pace, with Bainbridge back to driving the front truck. At one point, their guide has them stop, saying he thinks they are heading too far north. He has them turn a more obviously south and east course.
Saturday, 22 June 1935
Driving Onwards
When the sun comes up they park up again and create a camp, this time sweeping the area for snakes and spiders. Monty works on repairing the axle as best he can and re-fits it to the truck in the afternoon. They resume their journey again around 5pm and continue eastwards. They swap drivers again, but all of them are starting to get used driving in the desert. They continue to drive into the night without incident.
Sunday, 23 June 1935
Reached the Lakes
As the sun rises in the morning, they see a lake ahead. Bainbridge says it’s Lake Dora and they should head south now. They carry on and reach a dry stream bed. An hour later, it is starting to get hot, so Bainbridge has them pull up and make camp.
After they eat and start to rest and sleep, Eddy notices there are quite a few tracks from other wheeled vehicles in this area. They seem to converge into a narrow path running east that runs between two lakes. He wonders if that’s a secret route and there must be people who know the area.
Bainbridge counsels against going east, it is safer to go south to the wells of the Canning Stock Trail. This is not a place for adventures. Tiger points out they are following other archaeologists who have already come this way. Bainbridge says they can go east and see where it lead, but he does not like the idea. Cassandra decides to risk going east and Bainbridge agrees.
Following Tracks
They finish resting and then set off following this trail, passing between two lakes then turning sharply north. Bainbridge stops them again to question this change in direction. They look at the tracks and can see that vehicles pass in both direction here. Given that, they decide to continue to follow the tracks.
They press on until it gets dark, but following the trail in the dark is not so easy so they park up and rest again for the night. They study the map and think the trail will go past Sahara Well.
Monday, 24 June 1935
Between the Lakes
Early in the morning, they start up again and follow the tracks. After a few hours, the tracks lead them to Sahara Well, where they find signs of trucks being parked, cigarette ends on the floor and other evidence that this well is stopped at regularly by others in trucks. They stock up on water here, have a short lunch and then press on. There is a lake now south of them and they are heading east.
After a few hours, the track turns south and passes between two lakes. Bainbridge stops, because the map does not show a gap in the lakes here. They head south and it is getting hot, but they press on. The trail heads south for a while, they begins to turn east again.
Ambush
As they continue, they see ahead there are some rises and the trail heads between them. They press on, but suddenly Tiger notices something ricochet off the bonnet. He jumps out to check the bonnet, but at that point the windscreen shatters. The other trucks pull, with Tiger and Bainbridge taking over.
Tiger thinks someone is firing down on them from the rise on the right, but there are several shaded places where the shooter could be. He loads his rifle and tries to spot their attacker. Another shot catches him in the arm though, wounding him, but he does not see where the muzzle flash came from. Jeziah takes out his rifle too and looks around for a target, but at the moment he can see nothing. The hiding places in the rise are about 500 meters away though, making things difficult.
Find the Shooter
Monty runs up to them and Tiger gives him a pistol to fire, to distract the shooter. Tiger then runs forward towards the rise, while Monty empties the pistol. Tiger takes cover behind a rock, then uses his binoculars to scan different possible hiding places. When he sees nothing, he throws a stone to try to encourage the shooter to fire, but they do not.
Alex gets his rifle from the truck and looks for a target too, using a truck for cover. There is silence for a few minutes as everyone waits for a good target. Then the shooter fires again but misses. Monty is the only one who saw the muzzle flash, directing them between two points. There are two possible hiding places there. Tiger fires at one of the places, but his shot is poor.
Tiger Hit
The shooter fires again and hits Tiger in the body, causing him to go down. Alex spots the flash and realises where the shooter is. He fires and sees a splash of blood. They wait for a few minutes and nothing happens. Monty decides to dash up there and see. When he gets to the hiding place, he can see what looks like a miner with a rifle who has half their head shot out. There is a lot of litter scattered around, along with supplies of food and water, suggesting someone stays here for long periods.
Monty checks him and finds some Australian money and a small nugget of gold on him. He checks his body and sees there is a tattoo on his back, some sort of circle with wings. Looking out beyond the rise on the other side, he sees the land heading down and then in the distance large, white stones sticking out of the ground, with a camp and trucks in the middle of them.
Eddy dashes over to give Tiger first aid, bringing him around.
Monty returns to tell the others the shooter is dead. Bainbridge begins to complain that he did not realise there was such danger. He was not paid enough to risk being shot. Monty gives him the gold nugget, which shuts him up for now.