Empire of the Moghul: Ruler of the World (13 page)

Timur’s tactics might not be appropriate for dealing with a modern enemy like Rana Udai Singh, equipped with cannon and entrenched behind the high walls of his desert fortress, Akbar thought. But Timur’s self-belief, his absolute determination to win and never to cede the initiative or be deflected from his goals, were as relevant now as two hundred years ago. The desire to emulate his warrior ancestor sent a restless energy burning through Akbar’s veins so that he could hardly lie still beneath the
hakim
’s strong fingers. But it would not be long before the war drums boomed out from the gatehouse of the Agra fort and the Moghul armies advanced southwest into the pale orange deserts of Rajasthan towards Mewar and its arrogant rana. His mother had conjured those deserts for him so vividly that Akbar could almost taste the dry, gritty air and hear the harsh shrieks of the peacocks that inhabited these desolate reaches. It was not surprising Hamida should remember them so well. She had given birth to Akbar in a small desert town in Rajasthan while she and his father had been fugitives from a Rajput king who had pledged to rip Akbar living from her womb and send the unborn child as a gift to Sher Shah, the invader who had robbed Humayun of his throne.

That Rajput leader was dead, but the humbling of Udai Singh was long overdue and subduing Mewar, which straddled the route between Agra and the south, made sound strategic sense. In his
mind’s eye, Akbar already saw his armies battering down the gates of the great fort of Chittorgarh, capital of Udai Singh’s family for over eight hundred years and symbol of their overweening arrogance. Defeating Udai Singh, head of the most powerful Rajput ruling house, would make Akbar so feared – and respected – across the Indian subcontinent that none would dare challenge him.

I
n the early morning of a cloudless December day Akbar stood with Ahmed Khan at his side looking towards the Rana of Mewar’s great fortress-city of Chittorgarh. Its sandstone walls, over three miles long, sat high on a vast rocky outcrop soaring five hundred feet sheer from the dry Rajasthani plains below. Enclosed within them were temples, palaces, houses and markets, as well as military positions.

To Akbar’s acute frustration, he and his forces had already been besieging the city for six weeks to no great effect. Initially he had been pleased with the progress they had made. They had surrounded Chittorgarh completely, cut off all food supplies and captured or killed any foraging parties the Rajputs had sent out. They had gleaned some useful information from one of their captives, a ragged scrawny child of about ten whom they had apprehended with his two elder brothers as they climbed down the exposed rock face from the fortress’s outer walls in a desperate search for food. When Akbar’s soldiers had separated the child from his brothers and tempted him with a piece of freshly roasted mutton he had told them, after much cajoling, that Rana Udai Singh did not command the defending army himself but had appointed two of his young generals – Jai Mal and Patti by name – to the task. The rana himself, according to the boy, was somewhere in the Aravalli range of hills where he was said to be building a new capital to be named Udaipur after him.

The reaction of his older brothers when they had found out from the child what he had revealed underlined the strictness of the Rajput code. They had attacked the boy and would have strangled him if they had not been pulled away. They had repeated their assault the next day, when the three of them had been put to work with some other captives breaking and moving stone to be used in improving Akbar’s positions. This time, the eldest of the three had hit his brother with a sharp stone, inflicting a great gash to the side of his head. As he was hauled from his bleeding victim he had yelled at him, ‘You gave information to the infidel attacker. You are no longer my brother. You are not even a Rajput any more.’

When Akbar had heard this story, he had ordered the child to be cleaned up, clothed and put to work in the camp kitchen, remarking as he did so that it was a fitting fate for one whose desire for food had led him to help Chittorgarh’s attackers. However, the boy could not be persuaded to reveal anything about any secret routes into Chittorgarh. Nor would older captives, even when subjected to rough questioning and threatened with torture. Probably there were none.

Akbar and his generals had continued the assault, but his early hopes of success had faltered. He had ordered barrages of cannon shot to be followed up by wave after wave of attacks, attempting to charge up the single five-hundred-yard-long winding ramp leading from the plain to the city’s main gateway, which was situated at the lowest point of the summit of the outcrop. But none of the attackers had even got as far as the bottom of the ramp. As soon as his soldiers had begun to ride and run towards the ramp, Akbar had been forced to watch powerless as orange-turbaned Rajputs, oblivious of cannon and musket shot, had appeared on Chittorgarh’s crenellated ramparts and shot down the Moghuls with musket balls, crossbow bolts and a storm of hissing arrows. Men and horses had fallen dead or wounded, many on the exposed ground in front of the fortress. To Akbar’s dismay, more of his men had been killed as they bravely rushed out to attempt to drag wounded comrades back under cover.

Eventually so many lives had been lost in such rescue attempts that Akbar had reluctantly ordered his officers only to permit them under cover of darkness. Even then, the Rajputs had killed or wounded
many, so good seemed to be their hearing and vision in the moonlight. During the days following these attacks, Akbar and his soldiers were tormented by the sounds of their wounded fellows crying out for help, for water, and, in the last extremities, for their mothers and for God to release them from their agonies. The constant neighing of wounded horses was almost as pitiful. Black flies bloated from feeding on the corpses clustered everywhere and the smell from the putrescent bodies of both men and animals so polluted the air around Akbar’s camp that he had ordered fires of sandalwood to be kept burning constantly in an only partially successful attempt to mask the sweet, stomach-turning stench of decay.

Determined not to be beaten, Akbar had made rounds of his vast camp morning and evening to encourage his men. He had ordered small mounds or barricades of mud and stone to be thrown up at night to provide cover for rushes by day at the walls. However, though picked bodies of men had got near to the base of the ramp they had been unable to make any further progress and had been forced to retreat again, dodging back behind the mounds and dragging with them those wounded they could.

Even now, as Akbar watched, a number of his best troops were assembling for yet another attack on the ramp leading up to Chittorgarh’s gate. This time he and his commanders had decided war elephants would lead the assault. Soldiers were already climbing into the howdahs on the animals’ backs. To improve the chances of success, he had had the elephants fitted with coats of thicker than normal overlapping steel plates. The howdahs had been strengthened with heavy planking to give extra cover to the musketeers and archers within. Once their howdahs were full, the
mahouts
sitting behind the elephants’ ears tapped the beasts as a signal for them to rise, which they did ponderously beneath the weight of their extra armour and the reinforced howdahs and their occupants. Around them, the foot soldiers and horsemen who were to follow them into the assault were also forming up, taking advantage of what shelter the mud and stone barricades provided. The cavalrymen’s horses were tossing their heads and skittering uneasily, sensing their riders’ tension about the attack to come.

From his vantage point Akbar could see defenders massing on the battlements of Chittorgarh, well aware that another assault was about to be launched on their stronghold. Although his preparations were beyond musket shot, arrows fired from the battlements high into the air to secure maximum range began to plummet from the skies to fall among Akbar’s men. Many had lost much of their force and did not penetrate the armour of either elephants or men; others were deflected by shields. Some, however, wounded horses or less well-protected foot soldiers. As Akbar watched, a black-feathered arrow hit an officer’s tall white horse in the neck. It collapsed, crimson blood staining its coat, and its rider, a stout man wearing a domed helmet, slid from the saddle shouting for a replacement. A groom – an elderly man judging by his white hair and stiff gait – moved forward, leading another horse, this time a chestnut, but as he did so another of the defenders’ lucky arrow shots caught him in the chest. He staggered and fell, dropping the reins and allowing the horse to gallop wildly out from the Moghul ranks and around the ramparts of Chittorgarh.

‘Ahmed Khan, we must attack now if our assault is to succeed. Give the orders for the elephants to advance and for our cannon and archers to provide covering fire. I will take my place with the first wave of cavalry, ready to follow up the elephants’ attack.’

At Ahmed Khan’s signal, the elephants, encumbered by the extra weight they were carrying, began to advance, moving more slowly than usual but still they made progress over the dry, stony ground, bare except for the corpses of men and animals which lay between them and the bottom of the winding ramp. The defenders’ arrows seemed to have little effect, bouncing off the elephants’ steel armour or sticking harmlessly into the planking of the howdahs like quills on a porcupine. However, when the attackers came within musket shot, Akbar saw one elephant pause as if hit but then it moved forward again, stoically plodding after its companions leaving a trail of blood as it did so. Occasionally a soldier plunged from a howdah, clearly wounded, but with growing excitement Akbar realised the elephants were making better progress than in any previous attack. Soon the leading beasts would be at the foot of the ramp. Now was the time for him to ready his horsemen.

‘Follow me. Chittorgarh will be ours,’ he shouted as he led his riders forward at the trot, ready to charge after the elephants if they made it up the ramp to the gate. But then he saw some pots full of fire being thrown from the walls of Chittorgarh towards the elephants. All of them fell short, bursting harmlessly on the surrounding rocks. Suddenly orange-turbaned Rajputs began to emerge through a door set into the metal-studded main gate. The first man to appear put a taper to the large clay pot he was carrying and, as the pitch within caught fire, began to whirl the pot round his head while running at full pelt down the ramp towards the advancing elephants. He was followed by his companions, all similarly equipped with flaming pitch pots.

Although the noise of battle was too great for Akbar to hear the crackle of musketry, his musketeers and archers in the howdahs had clearly begun to fire. Several Rajputs fell on the ramp, dropping their fire pots, but the rest ran on, including one man whose clothes had been set afire by burning pitch after a musket ball had shattered its clay container. Eventually this human torch collapsed into a flaming heap but not before he had waved a blazing arm to encourage his fellows on. Other Rajput attackers – hit by musket balls or arrows – plunged over the low wall that formed the side of the ramp, crashing to the ground below. Yet still the rest ran on, oblivious of their comrades’ deaths and the musket balls and arrows cracking and hissing around them.

A minute or two after they emerged, the leading Rajput threw his flaming pitch pot towards the first of Akbar’s elephants, which had just put its front feet on to the ramp. Moments later the Rajput, hit in the forehead by a musket ball, collapsed to the ground, but his pot of burning pitch burst squarely on its target’s head and its flaming contents began to run down the elephant’s armour. Some of it must have seeped between the steel plates or into the animal’s eyes because, maddened with pain and trumpeting wildly, it turned back from the ramp, striking the elephant behind it and setting the heavy planking of its howdah afire. Other pitch pots thrown from the walls above, as well as by the survivors of those who had run down the ramp, also found their targets.

To his horror, Akbar saw his soldiers begin to jump from the howdahs of the stricken elephants and run back towards their own lines. Some with their garments alight rolled on the dry ground to try to extinguish them. Others just ran on screaming in agony, orange flames billowing behind them, until they too fell. More elephants began to turn, streaked with flames. Akbar saw the
mahout
of one hammer into his mount’s brain the large steel spike which
mahouts
carried to kill wounded elephants to prevent them rampaging among their own men. The great beast collapsed almost immediately and was instantly still. Another
mahout
was less brave and jumped from his animal’s neck, leaving it to turn frenzied and riderless and run back trumpeting towards Akbar’s barricades with its howdah on fire. It crashed into one barricade and stumbled over. As it fell, it exposed its unprotected belly to some of Akbar’s musketeers, who despatched it with several shots. In its death throes, it rolled on its burning howdah, mercifully crushing the life from the soldiers trapped within. The pungent stench of singed and burning flesh, human and animal, now blowing across the battlefield and mingling with the acrid gunpowder smoke began to fill Akbar’s nostrils, and he knew this attack – like so many others previously – had no chance of success. To save further futile casualties, with a wave of his hand he ordered his forces to fall back and turned his own horse. How was he going to break the deadlock?