Jauhar quietly entered Humayun’s tent at two in the morning to rouse him but found that Humayun was already awake. He had been for some time.While listening to the rain falling steadily on his tent he’d searched his mind, rehearsing his battle plan over and over again to check he had overlooked nothing. Eventually he had convinced himself that he had not.
Then his thoughts had turned involuntarily to the course of his life since he had first left Agra seventeen years ago to confront Sher Shah. At that time – he now realised – he had been immature, too ready to believe that success would be his by right and consequently not sufficiently motivated to apply all his inner resources to achieving it. However, he had never lost his belief in himself and in his destiny, never conceded that a setback, however severe, might be a final defeat. He was immensely grateful that he had been granted a second chance and for that he knew he had deserved his birth name of Humayun, ‘Fortunate’. So many – even kings – only received a single opportunity and, if they did not grasp it, disappeared from history as if they had never lived, all their promise, all their hopes and ambitions evaporating into eternal obscurity. He had learned over his reign that a consistently indomitable spirit was as essential to a ruler as bravery in battle. Today, however, was to be a day of battle and he knew he must put his courage to the test once more.
With that thought, he had begun to prepare himself for combat, a task in which Jauhar now started to assist him, helping him draw on his long yellow leather riding boots and – as he had done since they were both young men – strapping on Humayun’s jewel-studded, engraved steel breastplate. As Jauhar finally handed him his father’s great sword Alamgir, Humayun smiled at him and touching him on the arm said, ‘Thank you for your loyal service during all my troubles. Soon we will be back in our fine quarters at Agra.’
‘Majesty, I have no doubt of that,’ said Jauhar as he held open the tent flaps for Humayun to step out into the wet night air.
Akbar was waiting outside for his father and they embraced. Then Akbar asked, ‘May I not join the attack? I envy my milk-brother Adham Khan who will ride in the vanguard. He will be able to boast of his part in the fight when we again meet our tutors while I . . . ’
‘No, you are the future of our dynasty,’ Humayun interrupted.‘If, God forbid, Adham Khan were to fall, Maham Anga would weep but his loss would be a personal one to his family. If you and I fell together our line would be extinguished. I cannot risk that happening so you must remain behind.’
Humayun realised that Akbar had asked more in hope than expectation and could not but admire him for doing so. As he moved away from Akbar towards the place beneath the neem tree where Bairam Khan and his other commanders were waiting, he saw by the ghostly light of one of the frequent flashes of sheet lightning that a few yards away Bairam Khan’s young
qorchi
– his squire – was bent over being sick as he held on to the reins of his own horse and that of his master. Humayun turned and walked over to him. Seeing him approach, the young man quickly straightened up and wiped his mouth with a cloth.
‘Are you nervous . . . or perhaps a little frightened?’ Humayun asked.
‘A bit, Majesty,’ the youth, whose smooth face showed that he was no older than Akbar, admitted.
‘It’s normal,’ said Humayun. ‘But remember something my father told me before the battle of Panipat. True courage is to feel fear but still to mount your horse and head into battle.’
‘Yes, Majesty. I will not let you or Bairam Khan down.’
‘I know you will not.’
The weather had deteriorated dramatically by the time – an hour later – Humayun and the first division of his Badakhshani cavalry halted.They had reached the point where they would need to turn from the relatively firm but circuitous northeastern approach track Ahmed Khan had successfully identified to begin their final assault on Sekunder Shah’s camp. The rain was slanting down harder and heavier than ever, reducing further what little visibility there was in the darkness. Even the flickering sheets of lightning revealed little more than the drenching drops of rain which they turned silver and steel before the peering eyes of Humayun and his men. The occasional rumbles of distant thunder had turned into an almost constant crash and crack overhead. Even the elements were allying themselves to him, thought Humayun with grim satisfaction. From his perspective, the change in the weather was not a worsening but an improvement. There was little prospect that Sekunder Shah’s men would see or hear their approach before they were almost on them.
Minutes earlier, Ahmed Khan had ridden up through the downpour. The rat tails of wet hair protruding from beneath his helmet were now flecked with grey and his face was deeply lined, but the smile that lit it was as broad and as vital as when together they had climbed the sheer cliff to assault the Gujarati fortress of Champnir.
‘Majesty, we have captured the only outpost of Sekunder Shah’s that we picked out in daylight as protecting this approach to his camp. Thirty of my men crept up to and silently climbed a section of its low mud wall which was crumbling away in the rains. Then they rushed the garrison, which numbered a dozen men, and quickly and quietly slit their throats or strangled them with thin cords. None escaped to give the alarm – none even raised a cry.’
‘As usual you’ve done well, Ahmed Khan,’ Humayun had said and Ahmed Khan had departed to despatch more of his scouts to advance stealthily towards Sekunder Shah’s camp. Their task now was to try as best they could in the conditions to pick out the worst quagmires between Humayun’s current position and the camp which lay unseen in the darkness no more than a mile away so that Humayun’s assault troops could skirt them, avoiding becoming bogged down.
Impatient as he was to bring on the battle that would decide his destiny, Humayun knew their task was a crucial one and that it would be worth the wait for their report. In any case, the distances were small and they should soon return. After what seemed to Humayun an age but was, in fact, no more than a quarter of an hour, Ahmed Khan reappeared with six of his scouts, all mud-spattered and soaked like himself. Ahmed Khan spoke.
‘The mission was so important I went forward myself with these brave men. We were not detected. We used lances to probe the firmness of the ground and the depth of the mud. We found that if we ride directly forward we will indeed come upon great stretches of extremely boggy ground which would impede our advance and might even cause some of the horses to become completely stuck. However, if as we ride we take a rightward arc we will have a better if still very muddy approach. We will reach the earth barricades that Sekunder Shah has thrown up around his camp at their northern corner. Here they stand higher than a man. We may need to use the ladders that you ordered to be brought with us.’
‘Thank you, Ahmed Khan. Jauhar, tell Bairam Khan to choose some pairs of soldiers from among the vanguard, each to carry slung between their horses one of the ladders we have brought this far on the backs of pack animals. Ask him to let me know once he is ready and I will join him in the advance.’
Jauhar rode off and Humayun could just distinguish by the lightning flashes Bairam Khan’s horsemen forming up in battle order. Now combat was imminent, Humayun realised that he felt no fear but a general heightening of his senses which made a moment last a minute and a minute an hour and even seemed to sharpen his vision, enabling him to see Bairam Khan beckoning him through the murk before Jauhar appeared to tell him he was ready.
Humayun tugged on his leather gauntlets and instinctively touched his father’s sword Alamgir in its jewelled scabbard at his side. Then he repositioned his feet in his stirrups to ensure they would not slip and finally kicked his black horse into motion and rode over to where Bairam Khan was waiting with Ahmed Khan.The latter would lead the advance with his six scouts who had made the reconnaissance. They had each draped white linen sheets around their shoulders to make themselves easier to follow in the gloom.
‘May God go with us,’ Humayun said. ‘Lead off, Ahmed Khan.’
Ahmed Khan simply nodded and rode forward. He was quickly followed by the other six scouts and then by Bairam Khan and his young
qorchi
, now looking fully composed with a stern, concentrated expression on his young face. Humayun turned his horse and headed with them into the murk and falling rain towards Sekunder Shah’s camp.
The conditions meant that they could not advance at much more than a canter. Even then, the horses’ hooves threw up large amounts of mud and water which splattered those following. After they had ridden for no more than two or three minutes, Ahmed Khan reined in his horse by a small cluster of boulders on a low rise and Humayun rode up to him.
‘Majesty,’ Ahmed Khan spoke softly, ‘these rocks are the last important marker. From here, the walls of Sekunder Shah’s camp are about six hundred yards directly in front of us.’
‘Summon up the pairs of men with ladders.’
As they rode up, the rough ladders slung between their horses by leather thongs, the rain slackened and almost as if by a miracle the moon appeared, pale and watery, through a gap in the scudding clouds. In the few moments before it disappeared again, Humayun glimpsed the walls of Sekunder Shah’s camp.They were as Ahmed Khan had described, about eight feet high and made of earth, some of which appeared to have slipped down in places, making those sections more like steep hillocks.
There was no sign of sentries as moments later the men rode up to the walls and, dismounting quickly, positioned the ladders and scrambled up them on to the walls. There they began pushing the mud down, some kicking at it with their feet, others using spades they had carried strapped across their backs. Soon, about thirty feet of the wall had been reduced to no more than a low mound and Bairam Khan, followed by his
qorchi
, was leading his horsemen quietly into the camp. The rain was falling more heavily again and still there were no signs of alarm as Humayun himself and his bodyguard crossed the remains of the wall.
Suddenly, however, a startled cry rang out from somewhere in front of Humayun. ‘The enemy!’ Another fainter shout came from along the mud walls, then the much louder blare of a trumpet from the same direction. Perhaps the dozing personnel of a guardhouse had woken to the peril that was flowing all around them and were giving the alarm. There were answering trumpet blasts from towards the centre of the camp.
Now that surprise had been lost, Humayun realised that he and his men needed to advance as quickly as possible to destroy their enemy before they had time to arm and to form up. As he rode over towards Bairam Khan to give him the order to ride for the centre of the camp, a straggling volley of arrows fell, slanting down among the raindrops from the direction of the guard post. One implanted itself in Humayun’s saddle. Another struck Bairam Khan’s breastplate and bounced harmlessly off but a third caught Bairam Khan’s
qorchi
in the thigh. The youth clutched at his leg and as the blood began to run through his fingers stifled a cry.
‘Bind his wound tightly,’ shouted Humayun. ‘Get him back to our camp to the
hakims
. He’s young and has been brave. He deserves to live.’ One of Humayun’s own bodyguards rushed to comply.
Another volley of arrows fell but they were few in number and the only casualty was a cavalryman’s bay horse which slipped to the ground, two black-flighted arrows protruding from its neck. Its rider, a squat Tajik, jumped clear as it fell but slipped as he landed heavily in the mud, lying winded for a moment before scrambling to his feet.
‘Bairam Khan, send forty men to locate the position those arrows came from and destroy the enemy archers. The rest of you, charge with me to victory.’
As Bairam Khan quickly detached the men to deal with the guard post, Humayun drew Alamgir. Holding the sword straight out in front of him, and with his bodyguard around him and Mustapha Ergun and his Turkish mercenaries close behind, he kicked his black stallion into as near a gallop as it could come to in the mud, riding deeper into the camp. By now there was a slight lightening of the sky on the eastern horizon, the precursor of dawn, but Humayun could still see little through the rain as he rode, head low over his horse’s neck. Then, after a minute or so, he managed to distinguish the dark shapes of close-packed lines of tents ahead and at the same time heard the cries of Sekunder Shah’s men as they emerged from them, pulling their weapons from their scabbards.
‘Push the tents over to trap the enemy beneath. Ride down any who are already outside.’ Following his own orders, Humayun leaned down from the saddle and slashed hard at the guy ropes of a large tent, which crumpled to the ground. Then he cut at a shadowy figure who, after emerging from a second tent, was raising his double bow. Humayun felt Alamgir slice deep into the unprotected flesh of the man’s chest before biting into his ribs. The archer twisted and fell beneath the hooves of one of Humayun’s advancing cavalrymen, who was in turn thrown.
All around other of Humayun’s soldiers were jumping from the saddle the better to collapse the tents and to come to close quarters with their enemy. Soon Humayun could make out men rolling in the mud, fighting and stabbing at each other. He recognised one of his warriors, a curly-bearded, muscular Badakhshani who was sitting, smiling broadly, on an opponent’s shoulders pulling his head back by the hair. As Humayun watched, he thrust the man’s head forward again down into a quagmire of mud and water. He held it there for a couple of minutes before throwing the lifeless body aside.
Another of his men had run to a line of tethered cavalry horses and was slashing at their leg ropes. As he cut their tethers, he whacked each horse on the rump to send it galloping away into the gloom. Good, thought Humayun, it could only add to the panic and confusion among his awakening enemies. Yet another of his soldiers had grabbed a lance from a rack outside one collapsed tent and was stabbing at two figures struggling beneath its folds. Soon the squirming bodies were still and dark stains were spreading into the tent’s material.