by H A CULLEY
Dadanum had been greeted by the same sight two hours previously when he and his small group of men had returned, expecting to be greeted with relief by Hammurabi. Instead he now had to decide where the army had gone and traipse after them, tired, hungry and thirsty. They had nearly been captured the previous evening when they had stumbled into a patrol of about fifty Elamites but quick thinking by two of his archers, who had sent several arrows towards the enemy before they could react, had saved them. The enemy had dived for cover and, by the time that they had cautiously advanced again, Dadanum and his men had gone.
To walk past the city in full view would be foolhardy. No doubt the garrison had chariots with onagers to pull them, even if the relief column didn’t. They would soon run them down if they were spotted.
By the time they had worked their way around the city and continued towards the north – the way that Hammurabi would logically have withdrawn– the dust thrown up by the relief column could be seen approaching the city from the south. Dadanum made haste to put as much space between him and the inevitable pursuit as he could.
~#~
Hammurabi had decided that a tactical withdrawal was the best course of action in the circumstances. He had no intention of being caught between the advancing Elamites and the walls of Diniktum and so he had departed to seek a more favourable battlefield. He wanted the enemy to think that he had fled before them; he expected them to chase after him and hoped that, in their eagerness to catch him, they would be disorganised and unprepared for a pitched battle.
Ten miles north of Diniktum he found what he was looking for. Up to this point the Tigris had meandered through a flat plain interspersed with low brown hills. There was little or no cultivation and the banks of the river consisted of marshy reed beds. However the Tigris entered a narrow gorge at this point, having cut its way down through the brown rock over several millennia. The dusty plain had given way at this point to low, jagged mountains which would necessitate a long detour to the east if the army was to circumvent them. The army groaned audibly with despair when this barrier became apparent through the heat haze, but to Hammurabi the barrier was just what he wanted.
One mile to the east of the Tigris there was a canyon. It was a dead end but half way up there was a narrow goat trail that led back towards the river. This eventually led onto a plateau. It was a perfect defensive position. The only approaches were along the goat trail or from the north, where the plateau sloped downwards to another flat plain some three miles away. Hammurabi knew that he had to defeat the Elamite army here or die in the attempt.
~#~
Uktannu had enjoyed the freedom of the ride back to Hiritum. He and his escort had approached the town and cities en route carefully but the sight of the blue banner than one of the horsemen carried had ensured a welcome as the saviours of Eshnunna so he was feeling euphoric as he rode towards Hiritum. He left the horses and most of his escort on the far bank and entered Hiritum on foot via the water gate, just as he had once before. However, this time he was welcomed with deference instead of suspicion.
He was pleased to see that the city was well on the way to recovery. The dead had long since been buried and the houses had either been repaired or re-building work was ongoing. There were quite a few beggars, however, and quite a lot of urchins darting here and there, going about their nefarious business.
The palace too was much improved since his last visit. His brother sat on a simple chair on top of a low dais to receive him. His wife, looking younger than her thirteen years, sat beside him. Uktannu noted with pleasure that they were holding hands and she had that unmistakable glow about her than comes with pregnancy, though Uktannu was too young to recognise this. He was just content that they seemed to be so happy.
He went to bow low before his brother when he reached the foot of the dais but Narem-Suen stood up and came down to raise him up before embracing him.
‘It’s good to see you again, brother. How are you and how are my slingers? I trust you are taking good care of them for me?’
Uktannu smiled ruefully. ‘You may not think so. We took a bit of a pasting when we defeated the Elamites near Eshnunna. That’s why I am here.’
‘Ah, you want to relieve me of some of my street ragamuffins?’
‘If you are agreeable, yes.’
‘You’ll be doing me a favour, as you know. Now, it’s time you congratulated us. To turned to include his young wife. You are soon to become an uncle!’
‘Uncle?’ At first Uktannu was slow on the uptake but then he put the girl’s radiant state and the word “uncle” together. ‘Oh! Congratulations.’
He smiled with pleasure, then it really hit home that he had lost his brother and the one person he had depended on throughout the whole of his fourteen years of life. Narem-Suen now had a family of his own and Uktannu felt a sadness in the pit of his stomach that he hadn’t experienced before, not even when he heard of their father’s ignominious death.
Two days later he crossed back over the Tigris after saying good-bye to his brother for what he feared might be the last time. Even if they did meet again in the future it was likely to be briefly and the closeness that they had shared was a thing of the past. Then he waited patiently as his four hundred and fifty slingers and the small baggage train were ferried over. In addition to the two hundred and fifty boys he had managed to recruit he had asked Narem-Suen to let him take the two hundred Babylonian slingers who had been left behind as part of the garrison. His brother had also given him a few onagers loaded with supplies; something that Uktannu hadn’t even thought about when he left the Babylonian army camp.
His orders were to march south to re-join the army at Diniktum so he decided to follow the Tigris south, detouring away from it when necessary. Every night when they stopped and made camp, the boys would pair up – a recruit with an experienced slinger – and practice. Luckily slings was something that their leader had thought about and he had brought several bags full of the slings of the dead, which had been collected up after the battle.
By the end of the week, when Uktannu calculated that they must be near to Diniktum, the new recruits could all use a sling with a varying degree of accuracy. As they advanced alongside the river he noticed that the flat, stony plain with a few stunted trees, along which they were travelling, started to rise towards some low peaks some five miles away. Then two of the horsemen that he had sent out as scouts came cantering back.
‘Sir,’ one of them called out ‘there is a battle going on some three or four miles away. It was difficult to make out the details in the dust but it looked to me as if thousands of Elamites are pouring up onto the plateau to fight a much smaller army, probably ours.’
Uktannu sat there stunned at this news. What could he do to help with four hundred and fifty slingers, half of them novices, and forty horsemen?
~#~
When Hammurabi had selected the site for his stand he had assumed that the goat trail to the top was the only way up, unless you went all the way around the small mountain chain. His scouts had found other goat trails, but none that led to the top without a break. There were some which seemed to peter out and then start again further up. Perhaps the goats could leap from rock to rock to link the various tracks but men couldn’t, unless they were skilled climbers. They hadn’t bothered to give the end of the canyon more than a cursory inspection as it looked like a solid wall of rock. It wasn’t.
The Elamite garrison commander of Diniktum had more initiative than many of his type. He had troubled to get to know the surrounding area and, as part of that, his men had brought him a local goatherd and his family for interrogation. At first the old man had been unwilling to talk but, after being forced to watch his wife been raped by several men and then killed in front of him, he gave in, weeping and clutching his nine year-old son, who he was told would be next. As a result, the Elamite commander knew that there was another goat track that went all the way up the seemingly impenetrable wall of rock.
L
eaving two thousand of the five thousand garrison to hold Diniktum, the Elamite army commander set out with a total of twelve thousand spearmen and a thousand archers led by the small chariot force from the city. At least he didn’t have to walk any further he thought as they advanced across the plain alongside the Tigris, heading for the distant hills.
A few miles in front of him Dadanum’s small party had halted as they scanned the seemingly unbroken escarpment which loomed ahead of them.
‘Do we go around it?’ One of his men asked wearily.
Dadanum looked behind him to where a cloud of dust had recently appeared in the clear blue sky. ‘No, if we do and they take the same decision we are no more than an hour or two away from death. We have to hope that there is a path up it or through it.’
As they pressed on towards the mountains, searching the face of the range for an opening, they suddenly saw a group of horsemen appear, seemingly straight out of the rock, and gallop towards them. A quarter of an hour later Arishaka had leaped down from his horse and was embracing Dadanum.
‘By the grace of Marduk, you’re safe.’
‘Yes, no thanks to the wretches left holding our horses.’
‘The senior one was beheaded and the others are under a dire warning.’
‘I would have beheaded the lot.’
‘Hammurabi was going to but Balshazzar interceded for them.’
‘Huh? They’re very lucky that I didn’t get back sooner then.’
‘Still, you are here now and, by the look of that approaching dust cloud, it’s time we weren’t here.’
With that Dadanum and his men mounted double behind the horsemen and they cantered off towards the wall of rock.
Hammurabi, Arishaka, Balshazzar and Dadanum stood on top of the escarpment watching the approaching Elamite army. There was a slightly strained, not to say frosty, atmosphere between the commander of the camel archers and captain of the slingers because of Balshazzar’s intercession on behalf of the bloody cowards, as Dadanum insisted on calling them. Hammurabi had picked up on it at once but hoped that it would blow over, so he didn’t say anything.
‘How many do you think?’ Hammurabi asked, looking around and fixing his eye on Balshazzar as the youngest with the best eyesight.
‘Well, we can discount the chariots. I would estimate their strength at between twelve and fifteen thousand, practically all militia spearmen.’ The seventeen-year old replied.
Dadanum snorted. ‘No more than twelve I would have said,’ he sneered.
The king tapped him on the arm and took the surprised captain to one side.
‘Whether you agree with the leniency shown to the other boys in your party or not, it was my decision, not Balshazzar’s, so if you have a gripe it’s with me, much good may that do you. Now pull yourself together; we have enough enemies down there without falling out among ourselves.’
Dadanum looked crestfallen as he muttered an apology but inside he was seething with anger. Not only had Balshazzar caused the treacherous cowards to escape just punishment but now he had been responsible for the king reprimanding him. He vowed that, if the opportunity presented itself in the coming battle, the slingers would be looking for new commander.
As the captains headed back to their men Arishaka walked alongside Balshazzar for a moment and muttered in his ear, warning him that, whilst Dadanum was an excellent soldier and intensely loyal to Hammurabi, he didn’t forget and forgive in a hurry.
After halting for half an hour a few hundred yards from the entrance to the canyon, which the enemy commander obviously knew all about, the Elamites advanced in two echelons with the archers leading each one and the spearmen following. Hammurabi estimated that the leading echelon was half the size of the second one. He was puzzled; what were the Elamites up to?
As the first echelon started to make their way along the goat track the Babylonian archers started to trade fire with the Elamites coming up the track. The Elamites got the worst of it, then the slingers joined in and the Elamites beat a very hasty retreat leaving perhaps three hundred archers dead or badly wounded on the track.
The Babylonian horse contingent rode along the ridge shadowing the second Elamite echelon. When the latter reached the wall of rock at the end a guide started to lead them up a track which was hidden from view behind a natural parapet. One of the scouts rode forward to the top of the rock wall and from here he could see that there was a fissure which hid the track from view unless you knew it was there. He rode back to tell his captain and ten minutes later thy returned with the camel archers, who dismounted and started to shoot down at the advancing enemy. By this time the leading archers were halfway up the track. The Elamites shot back and this time they had an advantage: the Babylonians were exposed against the skyline whereas the archers could press themselves out of sight against the rock face unless they were actually shooting.
Things improved when the slingers arrived and added their missiles to those of the archers. However, both they and the camel archers were taking as many casualties as the enemy. The Elamite advance continued slowly but inexorably until they were nearly at the top. By this time their archers had suffered so much that were virtually ineffective, whereas there still several hundred slingers and archers in play. These started to turn their attention to the spearmen who halted; fearful of continuing.
Whilst this was happening, at the end of the canyon the first echelon had started another assault up the goat track. Once again it was beaten back with heavy losses for the Elamites. Then suddenly both forces withdrew as the sun set and twilight quickly deepened into night. The moon was three quarters full and so there was enough light to see by on top where the Babylonians were, but the canyon below was lost in inky blackness.
It was an hour before dawn before the Elamites attacked again. Under cover of night they had crept up the two tracks and then rushed the last hundred yards, overwhelming the strong guard positions that Arishaka had placed at the top of both approaches. However, the Babylonians were sleeping in armour and in formation so it was only a matter of moments before they were in position and trying to hold the enemy from establishing a bridgehead at the top of the two tracks.
The spearmen holding the exit from the first goat track managed to hold their own and, as it got light enough to see by, their foot archers started to exact a terrible toll on those waiting on the track for the bridgehead to be established. After two hours the fight went out of the first Elamite echelon and they fled back down the track. Things were not going so well for the Babylonians at the top of the rock wall though.
Some three thousand Babylonian spearmen were trying to hold back eight thousand Elamites. The camel archers and the slingers had taken up a position at the top of the rock wall, from where they could bring down the rearmost ranks of the enemy as they poured into the slowly expanding bridgehead; but they had to be careful not to hit their own men. The circle of Babylonians trying to contain the bridgehead was slowly being pushed back. As the containing circle expanded so the thickness of it decreased until it was only three ranks deep.
Dadanum kept an eye on Balshazzar, seeking an opportunity to kill the youth. He had cheated the captain of the camel archers out of his revenge and he was determined to make him pay the price. He pulled back his bow and sent another arrow into the back of an Elamite wearing a fancy helmet at the rear of their spearmen. Most of their militia didn’t wear helmets and so this man had to be an officer. He grunted in satisfaction then looked again for Balshazzar. He saw the stone that killed him for a brief instant as it sped towards his face. It was a perfect shot, striking him between the top of his nose and the brim of his helmet. The stone smashed into his skull, killing him instantly.
Balshazzar had taken Arishaka’s warning to heart and had got in first with a pre-emptive strike. He felt no regret; the man had been a good captain and no doubt he would be missed, but Dadanum’s best years were behind him whist his still lay ahead.
Arishaka sent a messenger off to his brother, w
ho was commanding the soldiers at the exodus of the first goat track, asking his for help or all would be lost. Twenty minutes later his spearmen were reinforced by another two thousand. This left Hammurabi vulnerable at the other position but he had decided he could rely on his foot archers to hold that position now that the whole track was exposed to view in the sunlight.
As he had the best part of five thousand spearmen the odds were more balanced but, even so, the Elamites had the tactical advantage of pressing outwards whilst the Babylonians’ line got thinner every time they were forced to concede ground.
Just when he was beginning to worry about defeat, a soldier fighting alongside Arishaka suddenly grabbed his arm during a brief lull in the fighting and pointed to the north, where he could see a large dust cloud approaching. He pulled back out of the front rank where he had been fighting and another took his place. At the head of the army he could just make out hundreds of figures before the rest were lost in the dust. He was puzzled, who could it be? For a second he thought it was more Elamites and his stomach felt as if it was full of lead, then he realised that was highly unlikely. Perhaps it was the Eshnunnans?
As the approaching army got nearer he saw a small group of horsemen in the lead and one of them was carrying a banner, but he couldn’t make out the colour. Then suddenly he could see it clearly but he didn’t believe it. It was the blue of Babylon.
‘They’re flying a blue banner, they’re Babylonians,’ he yelled exuberantly to his men. His cry had two effects: his men cheered and redoubled their efforts whilst the Elamites started to look fearfully at the approaching army. The enemy at the rear broke first but soon the whole echelon crumbled. Their one idea was to flee, but they had nowhere to go. The track was very narrow and the entrance to it was soon choked with panic stricken soldiers fighting each other to get onto it. The Babylonian archers and the slingers kept up their bombardment of the enemy, who were now so closely packed together at the start of the track that the dead remained upright, wedged amongst the living. Others were forced off the edge and fell to their deaths on the rocks hundreds of feet below.