"No, thanks," replied von Loringhoven. "The tyre's rotten. It will only puncture again before I could ride a few hundred yards. I'll get a train home."
"So you've done your bit, chum," continued the Tommy, pointing to the gold stripe on von Loringhoven's coat. "What's your regiment?"
The German had already noted the letters on the shoulder strap of his questioner. He belonged to a Lincolnshire battalion.
"The North Devons, Second Battalion," replied von Loringhoven promptly, trusting that the information would satisfy the man.
"Blimy, that so?" persisted the Tommy. "Then your crush relieved us at Armentières. D'ye happen to know—— Hullo, mate, what's up now?"
"Touch of the old trouble," replied von Loringhoven, imitating an asthmatic wheeze to perfection. "Sooner I get home the better. S'long, chum."
Arriving at the railway station the ober-leutnant found that he had twenty minutes to wait. When the booking-office opened he took a ticket for himself and one for the machine to Birmingham, the supposedly punctured wheel supplying a plausible explanation that an active man with the wind behind him should elect to go by train rather than by road. His thoroughness in purchasing an address label to affix to the machine showed that he was quite up to the requirements of the Railway Company.
He had gone into the question of the retention of the cycle, and had decided that it was quite safe to do so. The poultry thief would not dare to report his loss. On the other hand, he would be too panic-stricken to take any steps to recover it. Here again luck was with the crafty Hun, for, save in circumstances like the present, a bicycle could not be stolen without the fact being telegraphed far and wide within an hour of the discovery of the loss.
It was nearly noon when the fugitive alighted at Birmingham. In that vast city he was comparatively free from danger, especially as he had so carefully covered his tracks. Ordering a meal at a restaurant von Loringhoven ate at his ease, scanning the columns of a midday paper to ascertain whether there was any news of the escape from Stresdale. There was none; apparently the authorities had not thought fit to take the Press into their confidence.
Leaving his cycle in a lock-up, the ober-leutnant spent the afternoon in wandering about the streets until four o'clock. He had no intention of going farther that night; Birmingham as a refuge suited him admirably.