Now We Are Six (4 page)

Of all the Knights in Appledore

The wisest was Sir Thomas Tom.

He multiplied as far as four,

And knew what nine was taken from

To make eleven. He could write

A letter to another Knight.

No other Knight in all the land

Could do the things which he could do

Not only did he understand

The way to polish swords, but knew

What remedy a Knight should seek

Whose armour had begun to squeak.

And, if he didn’t fight too much,

It wasn’t that he did not care

For blips and buffetings and such,

But felt that it was hardly fair

To risk, by frequent injuries,

A brain as delicate as his.

His castle (Castle Tom) was set

Conveniently on a hill;

And daily, when it wasn’t wet,

He paced the battlements until

Some smaller Knight who couldn’t swim

Should reach the moat and challenge him.

Or sometimes, feeling full of fight,

He hurried out to scour the plain;

And, seeing some approaching Knight,

He either hurried home again,

Or hid; and, when the foe was past,

Blew a triumphant trumpet-blast.

One day when good Sir Thomas Tom

Was resting in a handy ditch,

The noises he was hiding from,

Though very much the noises which

He’d always hidden from before,

Seemed somehow less…. Or was it more?

The trotting horse, the trumpet’s blast,

The whistling sword, the armour’s squeak,

These, and especially the last,

Had clattered by him all the week.

Was this the same, or was it not?

Something was different
. But what?

Sir Thomas raised a cautious ear

And listened as Sir Hugh went by,

And suddenly he seemed to hear

(Or not to hear) the reason why

This stranger made a nicer sound

Than other Knights who lived around.

Sir Thomas watched the way he went—

His rage was such he couldn’t speak,

For years they’d called him down in Kent

The Knight Whose Armour Didn’t Squeak!

Yet here and now he looked upon

Another
Knight whose squeak had gone.

He rushed to where his horse was tied;

He spurred it to a rapid trot.

The only fear he felt inside

About his enemy was not

“How sharp his sword?” “How stout his heart?”

But “Has he got too long a start?”

Sir Hugh was singing, hand on hip,

When something sudden came along,

And caught him a terrific blip

Right in the middle of his song.

“A thunderstorm!” he thought. “Of course!”

And toppled gently off his horse.

Then said the good Sir Thomas Tom,

Dismounting with a friendly air,

“Allow me to extract you from

The heavy armour that you wear.

At times like these the bravest Knight

May find his armour much too tight.”

A hundred yards or so beyond

The scene of brave Sir Hugh’s defeat

Sir Thomas found a useful pond,

And, careful not to wet his feet,

He brought the armour to the brink

And flung it in…and watched it sink.

So ever after, more and more,

The men of Kent would proudly speak

Of Thomas Tom of Appledore,

“The Knight Whose Armour Didn’t Squeak”

Whilst Hugh, the Knight who gave him best,

Squeaks just as badly as the rest.