After a failed escape attempt from their hellish colonial prison, four Irish convicts await a punishment of 300 lashes at dawn. When the first of their number dies on the triangle before the lashes are complete, the three remaining prisoners are faced with the promise of an agonising death by the whip. To escape this suffering the convicts concoct a plan where they have to commit murder in order to get hanged. When their plan to kill a guard goes horribly wrong their only hope is to draw straws to take control of their fate.
