Empire of the Moghul: Brothers at War

by Alex Rutherford

  Then Humayun saw one of the cavalrymen he had detached to form the perimeter defence galloping towards him. ‘The Gujaratis have regrouped, Majesty. They are forming up to attack, now they have seen how few we are.’

  ‘We must be away. Trumpeter, sound the retreat. We’ll go back up the escarpment. They won’t follow. They’ll know it would be death to give us the opportunity to attack them as they struggle up.’

  Twenty minutes later, Humayun looked down from the sandstone escarpment on to the wreckage of the column around which the Gujaratis were now milling. His men had got away safely except for a foolish few who, mesmerised by the prospect of loot, had lingered too long investigating the contents of the baggage wagons. Among them, Humayun reflected sadly, had been the young Badakshani who had been brought down by an arrow in the back as he galloped too late for the escarpment. The bolt of embroidered pink silk tied to his saddle had unravelled, streaming out behind his riderless horse.

  There it was – beyond the tall palm trees and the pale tangerine sand the glinting ocean reflecting the light of the midday sun with such an intensity that Humayun was forced to shield his eyes with his hand. After his successful raid on the enemy column he had despatched half his force of three thousand men back to the main body of his army, which was beginning its slow advance from Moghul territories towards the jungle fortress of Champnir with all the equipment and provisions required for a siege.

  Humayun himself, together with a picked body of fifteen hundred horsemen, had penetrated even further into Gujarat, disrupting and defeating enemies wherever he found them. He had succeeded, he was sure, in leaving them uncertain and confused as to the main thrust of his army, just as he had planned. His quest for a caravan reported by captured Gujaratis to be carrying military supplies and trade goods towards the port of Cambay had brought him to the sea. Humayun was glad that it had. He called Jauhar to his side. ‘Pass the order that we will rest and refresh ourselves beneath the shade of the palms during the midday heat while our scouts search for the caravan. It cannot be far off now. Indeed, from what we learn Cambay itself should be no more than ten miles or so northwest up the coast. Give orders for pickets and sentries to be posted so that we cannot be taken by surprise.’

  As Jauhar turned with the message, Humayun nudged his black horse forward through the palms, whose long, pointed, dark green leaves were rustling in the breeze coming off the sea, and on into the soft sand. Here, Humayun jumped down. Stopping only to discard his boots, he walked out into the sea, conscious that he was the first of his family ever to do so.The water slapping against his lower calves was refreshingly cool. Again shielding his eyes, he gazed out to the glittering, sparkling horizon. There he thought he could make out the shape of a ship – presumably one of those trading with Cambay.What kinds of goods were they carrying? What kind of people? What else lay beyond the horizon, beyond even Arabia and the holy cities? Was there new knowledge to be gleaned there? Were there new enemies or were there simply barren lands or an infinity of ocean?

  A shout from Jauhar interrupted Humayun’s solitary contemplation. ‘Majesty, your officers wish to consult with you. Will you take food with them? You’ve been watching the sea for some time and the waters are rising around you.’ It was true. The little waves were now splashing Humayun’s knees before retreating. Reluctantly he turned his mind away from the metaphysical speculations he found so beguiling to present-day practicalities and made his way to where the officers waited, sitting cross-legged under a scarlet awning beneath the palms.

  Ten minutes later, his chief scout Ahmed Khan, a wiry turbaned man of about thirty from the mountains of Ghazni, south of Kabul, was standing before him, sweat running from his brow down his cheeks into his thin, brown beard. ‘The caravan is no more than five miles off, travelling along a road about a quarter of a mile inland on the other side of that thick belt of palms fringing the coast. It is about four miles from the town of Cambay, which is hidden from our view by that low promontory over there.’

  ‘We will ride along the beach itself on the other side of the palms and ambush them as they reach Cambay. God willing, we may even be able to force our way into the port if the gates are opened ready for the caravan’s entry.’

  Only five minutes later, Humayun was galloping along the edge of the sand with his bodyguard grouped close around him. In less than an hour they had crossed the rocky promontory and from the continuing cover of the palms Humayun could see the masts and sails of the ships lying in the port of Cambay or at anchor outside it. The caravan, including loaded, swaying camels and pack elephants as well as mules and donkeys, was trudging slowly towards the open main gate in the mud wall surrounding the settlement. The wall itself did not look too high – perhaps only double a man’s height. The caravan’s escort, about four hundred men in total, were riding on either side of it but appeared indolent, heads bowed in the midday heat with their swords in their scabbards and their shields on their backs.

  Riding back to the main body of his men, Humayun yelled, ‘Charge now. Take them by surprise. Try to panic the camels and elephants.That should disrupt the Gujarati escort.’ Even as he spoke, Humayun kicked on his black horse, which was already flecked with creamy sweat, and soon he was galloping full tilt with his men out through the palms, over the half a mile of stony, sandy ground separating him from the caravan and the port’s gate. At his command, some of his most expert archers took their reins in their teeth and standing in their stirrups loosed off a volley of arrows towards the caravan just as its escort realised that they were under attack. Some of the arrows wounded one of the elephants which with several shafts embedded in its leathery skin turned, trumpeting in pain, across the path of some of its fellows, scattering them.

  A camel fell with a low snort of pain, shedding its load as it subsided to the sand, its large, padded feet flailing futilely in the air. Another, with a black-feathered arrow piercing its long neck, galloped off towards the sea. Almost immediately, Humayun and his men were riding through the thin line of the escort, slashing at them as they went. Some Gujaratis fell under the first weight of the charge. A few were cut down as they tried to rein in their horses and turn to face the unexpected onslaught. Most simply bent low to their horses’ necks and urged the beasts towards the shelter of the still open gates of Cambay.

  Humayun and his bodyguard followed. Humayun galloped as hard as he could after what looked like an officer who was fleeing with two of his men. Hearing Humayun close behind, the officer turned and seeing his danger tried to grab his shield to protect himself. Before he could do so, Humayun’s sharp sword cut deep into his thick, muscular neck just above his chain mail coat and he fell, rolled over several times and was still.

  In moments, Humayun was in the gateway to Cambay. Hauling his horse round to avoid an overturned table from which some frightened tax or customs officials must have fled only moments earlier, he was soon out into the small square behind the gatehouse. Here it seemed a market had been in full swing. The stalls had been quickly abandoned, bags of bright-coloured spices pushed to the dust in panic, corn spilled to the ground where it mingled with orange lentils and rivers of milk from an overturned barrel. There was no sign of soldiers. Like the caravan’s escort, Cambay’s defenders seemed to have no appetite for a fight. The few stallholders that were left – mostly white-bearded old men or dark-clad women – were prostrating themselves faces to the sand before their attackers.

  ‘Find the barracks. Imprison any soldiers you find there. Take what you can from the warehouses and ships. Burn the rest. Don’t overburden yourselves. We must depart before sundown. When they learn of our attack on Cambay, the Gujaratis will be alarmed enough and uncertain enough of our whereabouts to feel unable to concentrate their forces when they hear of the threat to Champnir. We ourselves must hasten to rejoin our main column attacking that fort. It is there we will win the decisive victory that will make Gujarat ours.’

  Chapter 3

  The Spoils of War

&n
bsp; ‘Jauhar, bring me some of that lime juice and water – what do the Hindus call it? Nimbu pani? It’s refreshing in this heat.’ Humayun was standing in his large scarlet command tent in the middle of his fortified encampment outside the fortress of Champnir. Through the raised flaps, he could see its massive stone bulk at one end of a two-mile-long rocky outcrop which rose above the scrubby jungle trees whose leaves were turning brown and gold as the summer heat dried them.

  Humayun had joined the siege six weeks ago. As he had first discussed with his council, his officers had fortified their own position with barricades and cannon on both sides so that they could not only beat off any sorties by the besieged but also repulse the relieving force they had been so certain would arrive. It hadn’t yet and scouts still reported no sign of its approach. Bahadur Shah was said to be in the highlands on the southern border of his lands. Perhaps he trusted in the strength of the fortress and its garrison as sufficient to see off Humayun and his army.

  If so, he’d been right so far, Humayun mused. He and his commanders had tried everything but without success. Their cannon had pounded the thick stone walls, but many of the artillerymen had been picked off from the fortress’s battlements as they struggled to man the guns. Even on the one occasion when the gunners had succeeded in breaching a small portion of the walls, the Gujaratis had shot down Humayun’s men with their muskets as they tried to scramble through and over the rubble. Those who had survived to struggle back had reported there was an inner wall from the protection of which the Gujaratis had been able to fire their bullets and arrows to repulse them. At other times, the Gujarati cannon, well protected by stone embrasures, had been able to break up frontal attacks even before the Moghuls could get close enough to the walls to place their scaling ladders.

  Blackened and bloated bodies of dead Moghul warriors littered the ground before the fortress walls giving off the sickly-sweet smell of putrescence and attracting clouds of purply-black flies which had multiplied and now clustered throughout his camp. So many men had been killed in trying to rescue wounded comrades or to recover the bodies of the dead that Humayun had had to forbid such attempts except under cover of night and even then there had been more casualties.

  Jauhar’s reappearance with his drink broke into Humayun’s thoughts. As he drank the cooling liquid he looked out once more and saw that dark clouds were piling the afternoon sky. They would get darker and even more numerous as the monsoon approached.The rains would provide the defenders with water and make Humayun’s attacks even more difficult. They might even bring disease to his camp.

  ‘Jauhar, when do the local people say the rains come hereabout?’

  ‘Mid-July, Majesty.’

  Humayun stood, his mind made up. ‘We must complete our business here before then. Our frontal attacks are not working. We need to find an alternative and soon. I will go out with the leaders of our scouts tomorrow to see if we can identify any weaknesses in their defences the Gujaratis may have overlooked.’

  Humayun was sweating profusely beneath his chain mail as he rode along the southern side of the rocky outcrop on whose eastern tip the seemingly impregnable fort of Champnir stood. Added to his physical discomfort was a feeling of acute frustration. He and his scouts had already spent five hot hours in a fruitless reconnaissance of the northern side and were already over halfway down the southern. Every time he or a scout had thought they had spotted a vulnerable point where his men might make an ascent it had ended in an overhang impassable to climbing soldiers. Once a scout had got three-quarters of the way up a cleft in the rock wall before he fell backwards, arms flailing, when a single musket shot cracked out, revealing that there was indeed a defensive post concealed in one of the folds of the cliff.

  ‘Jauhar, give me some water,’ Humayun said, wiping his sweating face with a cotton cloth. ‘Quickly boy,’ he snapped as Jauhar fumbled at his saddlebag.

  ‘Sorry, Majesty, the ties are entangled.’

  ‘As quick as you can then,’ Humayun said more softly, conscious that his anger was inspired not by the boy’s ineptitude but his own frustration at failing to locate an attack route. ‘We’ll dismount and rest for a little under the shade of those trees over there on that small hill.’

  Wearily Humayun turned his horse towards the copse five hundred yards away. But as he rode up the gentle slope and dismounted, he realised that the higher elevation and a new direction of view gave a completely different perspective. He was able to see that above the trees was a deep cleft in the rock which seemed to run all the way to the top. Perhaps a waterfall ran down it in the monsoon but at the moment it looked dry. Thirst and frustration forgotten, Humayun called his chief scout Ahmed Khan to him.

  ‘Do you see that fissure over there? What d’you think? Could it be passable?’

  ‘I’m not sure, Majesty, but it looks promising. I will go and investigate.’

  ‘Before you go make sure that the rest of our men are under cover of the trees. We don’t want them spotted . . . and good luck.’

  ‘Thank you, Majesty.’ Ahmed Khan took a pair of leather boots from his saddlebag. Their thick soles had extra leather bands sewn across them for better grip. Pulling them on, he set off the half-mile or so to the cliff. After five or ten minutes he was lost to view in the scrubby bush and straggling trees. Then Humayun made out a figure climbing the cliff. Sometimes it disappeared but reappearing seemed to make good progress.Then it went out of sight entirely for a while. When Humayun next saw the scout he was much lower down. Humayun paced to and fro, waiting for his return, fearing that the last few yards had proved impassable but hoping they had not. Half an hour later Ahmed Khan was back on the tree-covered hill. His hands were grazed in places and the knees of his baggy pants were torn. By the uneven way he was walking his left boot seemed to have lost some of its leather banding but he was smiling broadly.

  ‘There appear to be no defenders. It’s not too difficult to get within forty feet of the top but those last few feet are very awkward with very few footholds. For a mountain man like me it should be possible to get up one of the narrow clefts, putting feet against one side and back against the other. But it would be impossible for many, particularly when encumbered by weapons. However’ – and here he smiled again – ‘the rock is fissured and soft enough for those going first to drive metal spikes into the cliff to make a kind of ladder for the less skilled to climb.’

  ‘I give thanks to God and to you for your bravery and skill. We will return tomorrow night with five hundred picked men. While our main forces make a frontal attack to occupy the defenders, we’ll make the climb and get into the fortress from the rear.’

  Under the pale light of the moon, Humayun with Ahmed Khan at his side climbed up through the scrubby trees towards the fissure. The loose, smooth stones and pebbles beneath their feet confirmed that this was the dry bed of a stream and that a waterfall from above did indeed feed it during the rains.

  Impatient as always to be in the thick of the battle, Humayun had disregarded the advice of Baba Yasaval that he should stay at the centre where he could better direct the action, and decided to accompany Ahmed Khan and ten of the best climbers among his bodyguard on the mission to drive the spikes into the rock. He knew he was as agile as any of them and that by going among the first party he would encourage the remainder of his five hundred men. The knowledge that their emperor had already made the climb himself meant that in honour they could not fail to follow.

  All was going well. They had tethered their horses a considerable way off and taken advantage of every scrap of cover and every occasion the scudding clouds had concealed the moon to get to this point undetected.Just in front, through the overhanging branches, Humayun saw the head of the streambed and the dark cliff rising above it. He motioned Ahmed Khan and the ten men who would climb with them to gather round him.

  ‘My destiny and that of the empire as well as all our lives are at stake in this attempt. There are great risks but also great rewards if we succeed,
as, God willing, we will. Now, check that you have your bags with your equipment safely secured and any weapon you wish to carry well tucked in. We want nothing dropped to reveal our position or to harm those following behind.’

  Humayun had left his sword Alamgir with Jauhar, who was to follow among the remainder of the force. He had dressed simply in dark clothes like the rest of his men but tied to a leather thong around his neck was Timur’s ring. Just before he began the ascent he took it out and kissed it. Then they were off, Ahmed Khan in front searching for the hand – and footholds he had used the previous day and signalling to Humayun, close behind now, to follow. Although occasionally they dislodged a few small stones, sending them tumbling down to the ground below, Humayun hoped any sounds they were making would be masked by the booms that were now resounding from his camp as his cannon heralded the frontal attack that was to serve as a distraction.

  Within twenty minutes, the two men were at the base of the final fissure. Looking upwards Humayun realised how difficult it would be to climb. The rock seemed worn smooth by the initial rush of the waterfall and the cleft was just too wide to brace the back comfortably against one side while climbing up the other with the feet. The spikes that Ahmed Khan – resting on a ledge that could only be two feet wide – was pulling from the satchel slung across his body and pushing into the dark sash around his waist would be essential. Humayun began to unpack his own hammer.

  ‘Majesty, the first ten feet looked the smoothest yesterday. I will brace myself in the cleft and you must climb over me using my limbs as steps to get into a position to drive in the first spikes.’