The Long and the Short and the Tall by Willas Hall Essay -- Long Short

"The Long and the Short and the Tall" by Willas Hall The play is set in the Malayan Jungle during the Japanese advance on Singapore in 1942. Seven British soldiers have different power due to the ranking hierarchy and they have different attitudes to one another. Sergeant Mitchem is the leader of the soldiers. He is a responsible and good leader which is evident due to him stopping many quarrels among his men and making decisions. For example, when Corporal Johnston and Private Bamforth are having an argument, Mitchem stops the argument by saying ‘Right. Pack it in. Both of you’. Next we have Corporal Johnstone, who is second in power to Sergeant Mitchem. It is obvious that Johnstone does not have the respect that Mitchem has. This is because Bamforth has many arguments with him and does not follow his orders efficiently. One example of a quarrel between the two is when Johnstone tells Bamforth to ‘Get your pack on!’ Bamforth then responds saying ‘you going to inspect us, corp.?’ The next highest in the hierarchy is L/Corporal Macleish. He is a Scotsman and has regular arguments with Bamforth. In one argument Bamforth called Macleish a ‘Scotch Haggis’. Macleish responds telling Bamforth to ‘Watch your mouth’. However this only encourages Bamforth to continue by saying ‘Aw, come off it, son. Where I come from it’s just a name’. Then we have the four Privates. Private Whitaker operates the radio and is very shy. However, at the near end of the play Whitaker shoots the Japanese soldier because he advanced on him. Private Evans is a Welshman and is just as pathetic as Whitaker. When Corporal Johnstone tells him to kill the prisoner as soon as he is captured using the bayonet of the gun, Evans steps back a... ...ho we initially disliked at the beginning of the play, turned out to be the sole form of morality within the group of soldiers. Thus, we later learned to respect him and his defence of a person in a war situation who greatly needed it. However, how do we know whether the Japanese will not treat the English prisoner in the same way that we treated their prisoner. How interesting that Mitchem and Johnstone held back Bamforth from stopping Whitaker killing the prisoner. This means that even after all of Bamforth’s efforts, they still wanted to have the prisoner killed. Eventually, the unity of Sergeant Mitchem’s men is affected because they all turn against Private Bamforth and the soldier. If there was not the presence of the prisoner then the soldiers would operate in their usual way with Bamforth rebelling and not displaying any changes in his character.