Army radiation experiments awaken a subterranean monster from a fissure that feeds on energy and proceeds to terrorise a remote Scottish village. An American research scientist at a nearby nuclear plant joins with a British investigator to discover why the victims were radioactively burned and why, shortly thereafter, a series of radiation-related incidents are occurring in an ever-growing straight line away from the fissure.

A British Corporal in France finds himself responsible for the lives of his men when their officer is killed. He has to get them back to Britain somehow. Meanwhile, British civilians are being dragged into the war with Operation Dynamo, the scheme to get the French and British forces back from the Dunkirk beaches. Some come forward to help, others were less willing.

At a fashionable dinner party in Hong Kong a naval officer is coaxed into revealing details of a dream in which eight persons take off from Bangkok in a Dakota bound for Tokyo and crash in the Japanese mountains. Amongst those listening is Air Marshal Hardie who is due to fly to Tokyo the next day. Hardie initially dismisses the dream because he is scheduled to fly out in a Liberator, but as Hardie arrives at the airport he discovers that the Liberator has developed mechanical problems and has been replaced by a Dakota. When, just before the flight is due to depart, two soldiers board the plane making a complement of eight, Hardie fears that the Dream may be coming true and he is destined to die.

The name The Long And The Short And The Tall is used as a suggestion of inherent differences in the main characters, with their only shared trait being their membership of the patrol and their stationing in the Burmese Peninsula. The play addresses the issue of British public perception of the Japanese after the conclusion of World War II. This unlikely group of people encounter an ethical situation, upon the capture a lone Japanese soldier who later becomes a prisoner of war. It explores war related issues about the treatment of Prisoners of War, and the justification of killing a man just because he has been labelled an 'enemy'.