Punch/Volume 147/Issue 3833/A Capture
Even without his khaki I should have known the wee lieutenant for an infant in arms, and I began to hope, directly I had been detached by our hostess to cover his left wing, that he was that happy warrior for whom I was seeking. He saw me looking at the red ribbon which adorned the left wing in question and which our gardener's wife told me the other day was "a poor trumpery sort of thing if Kitchener meant it as an honour to them."
"I'm not a kicker," he assured me, and I let him talk innoculation happily until we commenced to move forward in files.
"You live here, don't you?" he said as soon as Maria (not black) had served us with soup, and when I assented his next remark made me hopeful.
"And you know all the people round here, I suppose?"
"Nearly everyone I should think within five miles of the village."
"I've been here a fortnight and this is the first time I have been out—not out-of-doors, of course—I mean meeting people."
At that moment my neighbour upon the left commenced a bombardment which interrupted us but, when a pause came at last, the wee lieutenant broke it in a low and solemn voice.
"I suppose you couldn't tell me why a deaf man can't tickle nine children?"
So suddenly had matters come to a head that I sat staring, and the wee lieutenant, misunderstanding my interest, grew red.
"I'm not mad, really and truly, but that thing is positively getting on my brain. I'm not very keen on riddles and so forth, but I happened to hear someone ask that one the other day, and I didn't catch the answer. Somehow it has worried me ever since. Why can't he tickle them?"
I shoot my head. "I never saw anybody attempt it, deaf or otherwise. Hadn't you better ask the person who propounded the question?"
"I—I can't very well—I wish I could. I thought, if you knew the answer to the riddle, you might know the person who asked it. It's very hard to get to know people by yourself, isn't it?"
I lured him into the open. "How did you come to hear it?"
He pondered in silence for a moment with his frank eyes bent upon the plate.
"I don't mind telling you, but I shouldn't like everyone to know; they might think me a bit of a fool."
I promised discretion.
"Well, the other morning I was up on the common kicking a football about with some of the men—it's good for them and keeps them from getting too much beer, and I like it myself—football, I mean, not beer—and some people came and sat down to watch on the roller, and there was a Yellow Jersey among them."
"But what a curious place for a cow—on a roller."
The wee lieutenant twinkled. "And she was rather nice, you know."
I nodded, thinking to myself that this young man would never make "an Eye-Witness with Headquarters," whatever else the fortunes of war might bring him.
"Well, that evening we were out scouting, trying to find out where a party of cavalry had got to that had been reported coming out from King's Langley to take us by surprise, and when I got to a cottage with its blinds down and a light inside I peeped in, and there were two or three people, and she was there, and, of course, I had to knock and ask if any cavalry had gone by."
"And she didn't come to the door!"
"No, you're right there; somebody else did, but I heard my one—I mean the Jersey one—I mean the Yellow one—ask somebody that riddle; but the person—the sister or whatever she was who came to the door—finished me off before I heard the answer, and somehow or other it's been running through my head ever since. It isn't the girl, you know, it's—it's the aggravation of it. I asked our sergeant the other day and he doesn't know. One of these days I shall be giving it as an order—'Deaf section! Tickle nine children!' Do you—do you know who lives in that cottage?"
"Nobody."
"But she—they were there that night."
"Yes, but they don't really live there. We call them the Swallows because they migrate so much. Baby Swallow is very pretty, isn't she? and, by-the-by, she's rather afraid that you may be worrying about that riddle."
"Me—I?"
This was the moment for which I had been waiting, but the wee lieutenant took cover, hunting his dessert fork on the floor long after Maria had brought up reinforcements.
"Why, yes, she ought to have said 'dumb,' not 'deaf.' I've forgotten the answer—something about 'gesticulate.' She's coming to tea with me to-morrow. Would you like me to ask her what the answer is, and write it down for you?"
Our hostess gave the signal for our half company to retire, the other half to stay down in the smoke, and I added, as I went out, "That will lay the riddle nicely, won't it? IF it had been the girl and not the aggravation, I should have asked you to tea too."
The wee lieutenant surrendered at that, blushing above the door-handle.
"I—I—I say, I should like the get the answer first-hand. Won't you ask me to tea, please?"
I don't yet know what it feels like to capture a prisoner of war, but that's how I assisted at the taking of a prisoner of love.