The hardships of the journey had no terrors for him. He appeared warm in the bitterest cold, and when every one else was soaked through, he, to judge by his smiling face, was dry and comfortable.
He joked with the men on their troubles till the poor fellows almost began to believe they were grumbling about nothing.
"Cold?" he would say. "Nonsense! Why, you're glowing as if you'd just come from a vapour-bath. Footsore? I wouldn't like to challenge you to a race for a hundred gulden. Andras, how pleased you'll be when the war's ended to say, 'I went over the mountains with Görgei.' Your neighbours will never let you pay for a bottle of silovitz all the rest of your life. 'The cosiest seat in the inn for Andras,' everybody will say. 'He is a warrior, if you like.' Why, the maidens won't dance with another man in the room while you're there. Look at Janko," as a burly fellow shot head foremost into a snowdrift. "I'll warrant he expects to find something good in there. Lucky fellow, Janko!"
Sometimes he would start one of the fiery, soul-stirring, popular songs, when the whole regiment, joining in and forgetting all else, would swing along quite cheerfully.
At night, while we lay on the snow-covered ground, our teeth chattering with the cold, he would amuse the officers by his glowing descriptions of the mountains in the summer-time.
"The noblest mountains in the world!" he would say with enthusiasm. "It is a treat to saunter through the miles of beautiful pine forests, or to gather the lovely gentians and forget-me-nots, blue as if they had dropped from heaven, or to linger by the edge of some boulder-wrapped lake, and gaze into its clear green waters. In the early morning, when myriads of dewdrops sparkle and flash like countless diamonds, and the sun paints the cliffs with warm gold and crimson and purple hues, the place is like paradise. Then to stand on the summits and gaze over the fruitful plains, yellow with ripening grain--ah, I tell you it is a treat to wander amongst the Carpathians!"
Then some one would point out in a jesting spirit further delights to be enjoyed--the splendid mists, which drenched us to the bone, and prevented us from seeing the frightful chasms, down which we might tumble; the bitter cold, but for which we should not appreciate the comfort of our bundas; the slippery ice, which provided us with endless fun and a cracked head occasionally.
Gradually we would drop off into a restless sleep, and in the morning pinch ourselves hard, to discover if our limbs still had any feeling.
The march towards Kaschau was marked by a series of desperate fights with the troops under the Austrian general Schlick.
Sometimes they took up a favourable position, which it cost the lives of many brave men to capture; sometimes, creeping quietly through the darkness, they made an attack just when, wearied out by the toils of the day, we had fallen asleep.