CHAPTER VII.
A FIGHT IN THE MOUNTAINS.
"George!"
I had not been in bed an hour, and it was quite dark, when Rakoczy's voice wakened me from a sound sleep.
"Turn out and dress quickly," he continued. "We are ordered to Waitzen; the men are under arms."
"All right," I replied sleepily, and tumbling out grazed my shins against an iron box.
"Drawn blood already?" Rakoczy queried with a laugh. "What a desperate fellow you are!" and as he went away I heard him still chuckling to himself.
After a vain attempt to dress in the dark, I procured a light, and having made a hasty toilet hastened to the officers' messroom.
Several men were already there, scalding their throats with boiling coffee, and eating the next two or three meals before starting--a very good plan, too, as experience soon taught us.
As Rakoczy rightly said, on a campaign there is nothing like being a day in advance of your proper meals. Passing me a cup of steaming coffee and pointing to the eatables, he exclaimed, "Fall to, Botskay. There's no ceremony this morning."