If you need to store the data in a new array (I'll assume an array of arrays), you could do this (reusing the data kindly provided by Lennotoecom):

my  @table =  ('a b c d e', 'f g h i j', 'k l m n o', 'p q r s t', 'u 
+v w x y');
my  @table2 =  map { [(split / /, $_)[1, 4]] } @table;
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The @table2 array now looks like this:

0  ARRAY(0x803cc6d8)
   0  ARRAY(0x8042f630)
      0  'b'
      1  'e'
   1  ARRAY(0x8042f828)
      0  'g'
      1  'j'
   2  ARRAY(0x8042f840)
      0  'l'
      1  'o'
   3  ARRAY(0x8042f540)
      0  'q'
      1  't'
   4  ARRAY(0x8042f870)
      0  'v'
      1  'y'
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If you want an array of lines, changing the second line to:

my  @table2 =  map { join " ", (split / /, $_)[1, 4] } @table;
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And the resulting array is now:

   0  'b e'
   1  'g j'
   2  'l o'
   3  'q t'
   4  'v y'
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Edit: I did not look at it very carefully at the time, but I see now that the second solution I suggested just above is almost the same as the one suggested by Lennotoecom. Sorry for repeating almost the same thing, although this was not intentional.