Empire of the Moghul: Brothers at War (6 page)

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.’

Humayun nodded and Ahmed Khan crammed himself into the rocky fissure. Humayun then put a foot on Ahmed Khan’s tensed thigh and pushed himself up until he could perch on Ahmed Khan’s shoulders. Reaching up above his head, he felt along the surface of the rock until he detected a small crack. Pulling his hammer and a foot-long spike from his belt, he drove the spike into the rock, each clang of the hammer seeming to the anxious, sweating Humayun to echo alarmingly around the fissure. However, there was no movement from above and soon the spike was in. Humayun tugged at it and finding it firm used it to move up half off Ahmed Khan’s shoulders to locate a place for the next spike.

Again it went in well and, supporting himself mostly on the spikes and partly by bracing his back to the rock, Humayun climbed up, finding another foothold. And so it went on as, sweating and breathing hard, the two men made it to about ten feet from the top where to their consternation a rocky outcrop seemed to bar their way. However, tugging at Humayun’s clothes in a way he would never normally have done, Ahmed Khan gestured through the gloom to a thick length of jungle creeper hanging over the lip and dangling down about six feet to their right.

‘Majesty, I think I can reach it and use it to climb the final distance, hitting in spikes as I go, but I must be the one to make the attempt as I am lighter than you and – pardon me, Majesty – to do so I must use you as my ladder.’

Humayun nodded and gripping the last spikes tilted his body to the right. Soon he felt Ahmed Khan’s foot on his left shoulder, then it slipped painfully against his neck and suddenly it was gone. Ahmed Khan was swinging from the creeper, thumping spikes in to provide a route round the overhang to the top. Then he was up, waving down to Humayun to follow, which he did, resisting the temptation to close his eyes as he manoeuvred out and around the overhang. Then he too was on top. Panting so heavily that he could scarcely speak, Humayun whispered, ‘Thank you, Ahmed Khan. I will remember your courage.’

In half an hour enough men had climbed up, driving in more spikes and using ropes to rig makeshift ladders to make it easier for those following to form an advance party to move towards the fort. Humayun addressed the first hundred or so gathered around him. ‘Remember we must make no noise and therefore rely on our old silent weapons – the bow and arrow and the sword – and on our bare hands to kill any enemy we find. Once inside, I will instruct the four of you who carry trumpets and drums to make the pre-agreed signals to alert our forces attacking from the front that we are inside so they can redouble their efforts. Now let us move forward.’

Advancing through the bushes, the men crept more than half a mile before the vegetation thinned out and allowed them to make out about a thousand yards in front of them the rear wall of the fortress – much lower than those at the front and sides and with no sign of guards. Crouching and taking advantage of the cover of the few remaining bushes and the darkness as some large clouds drifted over the moon, the men ran across the intervening ground to squash themselves against the walls, any sound they made more than blotted out by the noises of battle coming from the front of the fort. Some of the men had brought ropes with them and, at an order from Humayun, Ahmed Khan seized one and began to climb up the wall at a corner where it turned almost at right angles to follow the contours of the land. Within seconds, he had scrambled to the top using the same techniques as he had in the fissure and thrown down his rope for others to follow. Soon several other men had climbed up and more ropes were hanging down.

Humayun himself was quickly on the smooth battlements, peering along them to see whether there was a guardhouse. Yes, there was one – about a hundred yards away. Suddenly its door opened and six men appeared with torches – presumably a skeleton guard left behind while the others rushed to bolster the troops on the front wall which judging from the noise and commotion was now under full assault. The guards moved towards the wall to look down and, as they did so, Humayun ordered his men carrying bows to shoot as fast as they could before the guards could raise the alarm. Almost immediately there was a hiss of arrows and the six men were hit, two falling headfirst from the walls they were looking over and another drumming his legs on the stone battlements in his death throes. The other three were at once still.

Humayun led the charge towards the guardhouse. As he reached it, another Gujarati who had been hiding inside sprinted out, making for a covered staircase only ten yards away leading to the courtyard below. He was too near it for there to be time to loose off arrows before he disappeared beneath its protective roof. Humayun ran after him, arms and legs pumping, and reached the top of the staircase to see that the guard had descended most of its twenty or so stone steps. Without pausing to think, Humayun leaped from the top step on to the guard, knocking him down to the bottom. Both men were winded but the guard was the first to his feet and attempted to run on. Humayun scrambled after him and catching him by the ankle brought him to the ground once more. Summoning all his skill as a wrestler to pin the wildly struggling man beneath him, Humayun succeeded in closing his fingers round his neck and started to squeeze the life out of him until he heard the man’s breath rattle in his throat and threw the limp body aside. Humayun’s men were surrounding him again.

‘We now have at least four hundred men,’ Ahmed Khan gasped. ‘What next?’

‘Get as far to the front of the fort as we can before we are detected.’

Ahead, the men could see the flashes of the cannon and hear their boom and the crack of muskets as well as all the cries and screams of battle. Smoke was drifting across the courtyard, in particular through a large gateway in the opposite wall. This must mean that the gate gave directly on to the main part of the fort where the defenders were concentrated, Humayun thought. ‘Get our men to the gate, half on each side, and then we’ll sound our drums and trumpets to alert our fellows attacking the front wall before we charge into the enemy’s rear,’ he ordered. The command was quickly passed on and at Humayun’s signal his men rushed to the gateway. Peering round the corner of the gate, Humayun could see through the billowing smoke cannon positions on the front wall and also defenders firing and pouring burning pitch and oil on to his own men attacking below.