Empire of the Moghul: The Tainted Throne

by Alex Rutherford

  Coughing from the acrid gunpowder smoke, his ears ringing, Khurram urged his horse onwards again, slashing at another gunner who was struggling towards his weapon almost bent double under the weight of a heavy stone cannon ball. Struck in the back, the man dropped the ball and, blood soaking his grubby white tunic, slumped to the ground. In a minute or perhaps even less – time seemed to pass so slowly in battle – Khurram was on the other side of the column. Looking around him he could see that many other gunners were dropping their ramrods to abandon their posts and flee on foot. Most were doing so in vain since his own mounted men were catching them in the back with their swords as they ran or piercing them with their lances.

  Quickly Khurram’s men began gathering around him. ‘Those of you issued with spikes hammer them into the breeches of the cannon,’ he commanded. ‘Those with mallets try to knock the wheels from the gun limbers. And those of you designated to set gunpowder trails to blow up the powder wagons as we depart, get to your work. The rest of us will hold off Malik Ambar’s men while you do so.’

  As his soldiers dropped from their saddles to begin their tasks Khurram heard a trumpet blow and through a gap in the billowing smoke – which he had already learned rendered battlefields such confusing places – saw a group of Malik Ambar’s horsemen emerge from lower down the now disorganised ranks of his column and charge determinedly towards his own position. ‘Come on, let’s meet them head on,’ Khurram shouted, and urged his black horse forward.

  He and his men could not get their horses into a gallop before the enemy was on them. Apparently recognising Khurram, one thick-set officer who had had no time to don either helmet or breastplate pulled on his reins to head directly for him. Khurram wheeled his horse, now blowing from its previous exertions, to meet him. However, it was his opponent who got in the first blow, aiming a swinging stroke of his scimitar which caught Khurram’s breastplate and then skidded off, knocking Khurram off balance so that his own first stroke missed too, parting the air over the officer’s head as he ducked. But then Khurram, recovering the faster, struck again, thrusting his sharp sword deep into the man’s ample and unprotected stomach just below his breastbone. Dropping his weapon and his reins and clutching at his wound, the officer fell from his horse which, relieved of his weight, galloped away from the fray.

  Looking around him while he caught his breath, Khurram saw that more and more of Malik Ambar’s men were joining the fight and that several of his own soldiers were sprawled on the ground, dead or wounded. The raid had been as successful as he could have wished, eroding Malik Ambar’s strength and his equipment. But now with their task complete it was time for him and his men to retreat while they still could. ‘Mount up,’ he shouted to those finishing disabling the cannon. ‘Pick up any wounded or unhorsed men and ride two to a horse, but as you leave remember to set fire to the powder trails you’ve laid around the wagons.’

  He watched as his dismounted men scrambled into their saddles, pulling comrades up behind. One tall Rajput was struggling to get a wounded companion on to his grey horse when two arrows thudded in quick succession into the body of the injured man and he fell backwards, clearly dead. ‘Come on,’ Khurram urged, and put his heels to his horse whose black coat was now covered with a scum of white sweat. He was among the last to leave. As he rode hard, twisting in his saddle to look behind him, he saw another of his men fall sideways from his mount, hit by a spear thrown by one of Malik Ambar’s soldiers. The man’s foot caught in the stirrup and he was dragged behind the horse for some distance before the stirrup leather snapped.

  Suddenly, Khurram felt a blast of warm air sweep past him and a great boom deafened him again. At least one of the powder wagons had exploded. Another bang followed and Khurram felt a stinging pain in his left cheek near his nose and liquid running down his face on to his lips. It tasted salty and metallic on his tongue – blood. Putting his hand to his cheek as he rode he pulled out a sliver of metal. Perhaps part of a tin powder trunk, he thought.

  Soon he was back on top of the ridge from which he had started the attack, where the rest of his men were regrouping. Patting the heaving flanks of his horse and looking behind him again, he saw that a few Moghul stragglers were still galloping away from Malik Ambar’s disorganised column. The forelegs of one grey horse buckled as it ascended the slope and it collapsed, its rider, a burly, bow-legged man, leaping from the saddle just in time. Looking closer, Khurram saw that the horse had a great sword slash along its side. It had done well and bravely to get its rider so far.

  Malik Ambar’s men were not pursuing them. Just as had happened twice before in the two months since Khurram had left Burhanpur, his opponent had preferred to persist with a tactical retreat, accepting losses to his forces in hit and run raids like today’s without attempting to follow his assailants when they broke off the action. Malik Ambar seemed determined to continue the withdrawal into the mountains bordering the Deccan plateau which he had begun on first hearing the news of Khurram’s approach. Here his outnumbered force would be able to exploit familiar terrain in any battle.

  Khurram wiped his bloody sword on a piece of saddlecloth and sheathed it once more in its jewelled scabbard, his emotions a mixture of satisfaction and frustration. Satisfaction that he had inflicted further damage on Malik Ambar’s army, diminishing their firepower and numbers at an acceptable cost in Moghul lives, and frustration that Malik Ambar still would not commit himself to a conclusive battle. However, he comforted himself that such an encounter could not be long delayed.

  ‘Here, let me see,’ Arjumand ordered. It was less than five minutes since Khurram had galloped back into the camp on his exhausted black horse. Heedless of convention she had run from the haram tent to greet him, having spent the intervening hours ceaselessly pacing the hot interior, returning only the most perfunctory answers to the attempts of her attendants to distract her with titbits of court gossip or queries as to whether she might want refreshment. Seeing the blood on Khurram’s face she had immediately taken him back into the tent.

  ‘It’s nothing. It’s a scratch. It really is. The scab is forming already,’ Khurram protested but Arjumand would not be thwarted, calling for an infusion of the leaves of the neem tree to clean the wound, a sure way she had been told to prevent infection from setting in. While a maid hurried off to find the neem water, Arjumand undid the straps of Khurram’s breastplate and lifted it from him, saying as she did so, ‘Thanks to God that you are safe.’

  ‘I told you I would return . . . You look so worried. Are you sure that accompanying me on campaign is really good for you? Wouldn’t you be happier in Burhanpur?’

  ‘No,’ Arjumand replied immediately, her tone firm. ‘Here the wait for news is shorter. It would be much worse waiting for messengers to arrive and then scanning their faces for what news they brought. Here in the camp I can be with you and share your thoughts and your joy in your final victory, which I know to be inevitable.’ As she spoke she embraced him, heedless of the acrid smell of the sweat which stained his tunic.

  Even as he returned her caress, Khurram’s mind began to turn to how best he could achieve the victory Arjumand thought so inevitable. Malik Ambar still remained a most dangerous adversary.

  ‘Highness, rather than confront us in battle on open ground Malik Ambar has retreated into a closed valley about five miles ahead,’ Kamran Iqbal reported, beads of perspiration running down his fleshy face from his exertions in the heat as he rode up on his return from his scouting mission. ‘His men are already blocking the entrance with overturned wagons, rocks and anything else they can find.’

  At last, thought Khurram. Since the raid in which he had suffered the superficial wound to his cheek his men had maintained contact with Malik Ambar’s forces as they headed back into the Sultan of Ahmednagar’s territory. Through a further series of flanking attacks and harassing raids Khurram had pushed his enemy away from any strongholds where he might obtain more men. Now Malik Ambar, who seemed to have succeeded in the
difficult task of maintaining his men’s discipline in retreat, had clearly decided he must finally stand and fight. Even if the Abyssinian had chosen terrain well suited to defence, Khurram was confident of victory. ‘What about the valley beyond that? Is it a dead end?’

  ‘The valley is bottle shaped. The entrance is the neck or narrowest part. The sides are steep and strewn with rock and scree. The valley floor has a small spring-fed river running through it to provide Malik Ambar’s men with water. Also it is well wooded. They will be able to cut down some trees to build barricades and still leave enough standing to break up any charge we may make.’

  ‘What do you think? Should we attack now?’ Khurram asked, impatient to bring on the final battle.

  ‘No, Highness. Although it would be tempting, I think not,’ said Kamran Iqbal. ‘The entrance to the valley is narrow and easy to fortify. If we attack just with the horsemen we have with us we risk a serious setback. We must wait until the cannon and the war elephants catch up with us.’

  Khurram knew that Kamran Iqbal was right. He would be a fool to take a chance after spending so many weeks in manoeuvring Malik Ambar’s army into its present position. Malik Ambar was like a wounded lion in his lair, still entirely capable of despatching an over-eager or careless hunter.

  ‘Victory will be ours today,’ Khurram had told Arjumand an hour earlier. Now he was watching from a vantage point on a hillock about half a mile from the valley in which Malik Ambar’s army had barricaded itself. The entrance really was narrow – no more than at most two hundred yards across – and the cliffs at either side were so steep as to be impossible to climb, at least for a body of men under fire. Malik Ambar’s troops had blocked the valley’s entrance with rocks, felled trees and even bundles of the spiny bushes which grew thereabouts as well as with overturned wagons. The barrels of those of Malik Ambar’s cannon that had survived Khurram’s raids poked out at intervals along the barricade.

  More than ever, Khurram was convinced that he had been right in his assessment at the war council the previous evening that the place where the river flowed out of the valley was a likely weak spot. Malik Ambar’s men could not extend the barricades across the river without creating a dam which would quickly lead to flooding of the area behind them, making them impossible to man.

  As agreed at the war council a group of his elephants was already advancing to the attack, plodding slowly but determinedly towards the neck of the valley. Khurram could see flashes from musket shots from some of the howdahs and from others came the crash and smoke of his small cannon – his gajnals. Behind the elephants, ranks of his horsemen were already massing to exploit any breakthrough. In his heart Khurram wanted to be with them to lead their charge but in his head he knew that Arjumand had been right and not just thinking of his safety when she urged him to follow his commanders’ advice that he would be better employed directing operations at a distance from the battle and its swirling smoke and consequent confusion.

  Cannon were now firing from behind Malik Ambar’s makeshift barricades and Khurram saw one of his leading elephants stop and then slowly collapse, falling sideways into the river, crushing its howdah. Both the mahouts fell from the neck of another elephant, presumably hit by a volley of concerted musketry. The elephant turned away from the attack, its trunk raised in panic and fear. In its flight the sharp swords attached to its tusks sliced into the leg of one of the following elephants and it too fell. As it did so, Khurram could make out the gajnal crashing from its howdah to the ground. Another elephant stumbled over it, pitching forward and dislodging both mahouts from its neck as well as its howdah.

  Some elephants were still advancing but they were finding it difficult to get round the bodies of their fallen comrades. It would be almost impossible for them to get up the necessary pace in a charge towards Malik Ambar’s barricades to succeed in breaching them. Yet another elephant crumpled as Khurram watched, this time so slowly that the four occupants of its howdah were able to jump down and begin running back to safety. To Khurram’s dismay one of the four fell, clearly hit by a musket ball, just moments later. The second turned back to help his comrade but was shot before he could get to him. The third was also hit but perhaps less severely wounded and began crawling back towards Khurram’s lines. The fourth, who was running through the shallows of the river, had nearly got out of musket range when he too was hit, flinging his arms into the air and collapsing face downwards into the water.

  In the meantime at least four more elephants had fallen while two or three others were turning away. One of them, badly wounded, staggered into the river where it fell with a great splash, the blood staining the fast-flowing water. Best to call off the attack now, Khurram thought, before his force took any more casualties, and he immediately gave the order to the waiting despatch rider at his side. All along he had known that Malik Ambar was a crafty, skilled and experienced opponent. He was sure the Abyssinian thought that if he defended the valley well he could inflict so many casualties on the Moghuls that either they would retreat, leaving themselves vulnerable to his counterattack in the process, or at the very least the conflict might drag on into a stalemate from which he might be able to negotiate a truce and safe passage for his army. Khurram could only imagine his quick-tempered father’s reaction if he allowed either of those things to happen and thus failed in his first major campaign. He must take time to think out a new strategy. Better to postpone further action for a day or two than launch another futile frontal attack later that afternoon.

  ‘What were our losses?’ Khurram asked his commanders later as they sat cross-legged in a semicircle around him.

  ‘At least six hundred men killed or badly injured. The hakims have only time to attend to those they think may have a chance of survival. Perhaps as important, thirty of our best war elephants were killed or so badly wounded that it was a kindness to end their suffering,’ Kamran Iqbal responded.

  ‘That’s a little worse than I feared. I think we must dismiss the idea of straightforward frontal attacks for the moment. Are we sure that there are no back routes into the valley and the valley sides are indeed as steep as we think?’

  ‘Yes, as far as we can tell, Highness. The local people, who are so often a good source of intelligence, have either fled or are so frightened that they won’t give much useful information. If we press them too hard they will just tell us what they think we want to hear and that will be worse than useless.’

  ‘We have sent out some of our scouts, haven’t we, to ride around the escarpment and investigate the valley from the rear?’

  ‘Yes, but Malik Ambar seems to have lots of his own scouts out too. Knowing the terrain better than our men they have successfuly ambushed them on a couple of occasions. Besides, the survivors and those who completed their missions unmolested report that from what they’ve seen the only way that numbers of armed men can get into the valley is indeed through that narrow front entrance.’

  ‘Well then, how do you suggest we go about the assault?’ asked Khurram, for a moment devoid of anything to put forward himself.

  ‘Highness, what we need to do is to get the cannon into an advanced position where they can really damage the barricades,’ said Walid Beg, a thin Badakhshani, the most senior of Khurram’s gunnery officers and at least twice the prince’s age.

  ‘That’s easier said than done. The gunners will have no protection and Malik Ambar will be able to pick them off before they can bring their weapons into action.’

  ‘Why not use the corpses of the dead elephants to provide some kind of protection for the cannon emplacements?’ suggested Kamran Iqbal.

  ‘Yes, but we’d still have to get the cannon into position and we’d take too many casualties as we tried to do so.’

  Suddenly a thought came to Khurram. When both his war council and Arjumand had advised him not to command from the front line, both had cited the confusion caused by the billowing smoke as one of their main arguments. Why didn’t he exploit smoke to his own advanta
ge? ‘Couldn’t we create a screen of smoke behind which our men could bring up the cannon and position them behind the elephants’ bodies?’ he asked. ‘There is lots of scrub and grass around that should burn with plenty of smoke. It should only take a few hours for our men to collect enough.’

  ‘That may work, Highness,’ said Walid Beg thoughtfully.

  ‘It will. We can order our men to tie strips of green or white cloth round their arms to aid them in identifying each other in the smother. Send the men out immediately to start collecting the brush for burning. We’ll put it in place overnight and you, Walid Beg, should start moving the cannon up in the hour or two before dawn so darkness will give us some added cover.’

  Khurram was already dressed for battle at four o’clock in the morning as the first of the ox teams pulling his cannon began to make their way slowly towards the entrance to the valley with an escort of horsemen. The brushwood had already been stacked in positions where the wind would blow smoke into Malik Ambar’s defences, obscuring his men’s view. Khurram hoped against hope that the current quite strong breeze would not change direction nor fade away. After what he guessed was about twenty minutes, he heard shots. The oxen teams had already encountered some advanced pickets of Malik Ambar’s forces deployed by him beyond the barricades. The Abyssinian is a good general, thought Khurram, but I will prove a match for him.

  It was now first light and time to put his plan to use smoke into action. ‘Fire the first bonfire,’ he shouted, and a rider galloped off to ensure it was done. Walid Beg and his gunners already had orders to open fire when they got into a suitable position behind the protection of the elephant corpses. Only a minute or two later he heard the deep boom of the first cannon shots, quickly followed by the crackle of musketry. Battle was joined, and even from his position six hundred and more yards away from the main action Khurram could smell the burning brushwood. As the day dawned more fully he could see that most of the smoke was indeed blowing towards Malik Ambar’s barricades.