Empire of the Moghul: Brothers at War

by Alex Rutherford

  ‘That smelly little peasant should never have got near the durbar hall, let alone have sat on the imperial throne,’ said another voice after a pause. ‘If the emperor had wanted to reward him, a copper coin and a goodbye kick would’ve done. I hope this isn’t the start of some fresh insanity. With Sher Shah’s armies pressing nearer we need a warrior, not a dreamer.’

  ‘The emperor is a fighter – no one is braver in the field . . .’ said a third man. His voice was deep and sounded older but – as with the others – Humayun didn’t recognise it.

  ‘Well let’s hope he remembers that’s what he’s there for. Babur was a real man – that’s why I rode from Kabul with his invasion force. I didn’t leave everything behind for a fanciful star-gazer I can’t trust . . .’

  ‘But he’s already won great victories . . . remember Gujarat and how we . . .’ the deeper voice went on, but as the men began to move off Humayun couldn’t catch the rest.

  Their words had angered him. He’d been tempted to leap out and confront them but there’d been justice in some of what they’d said. Doped with opium and living in a twilight world he had lost touch with his commanders and courtiers and let his people down. But they were wrong about Nizam. He had given Nizam his word and had kept it. That was the action of an honourable man. To do otherwise would have damned him in the next life, if not in this . . .

  ‘First, what do we know of our enemy, Ahmed Khan?’

  Humayun was seated once more in his scarlet command tent with his military council around him. He had arrived at his army’s camp, a hundred and twenty miles south of Agra, the previous evening to renew the war against Sher Shah.

  ‘The news, Majesty, is not good. After burying his dead, Sher Shah returned slowly to Kakori, the town he had used as his forward command centre. Here, ten weeks ago, he held a great parade to celebrate his victory. To the beating of drums a detachment of his elite cavalry riding beneath their purple pennants led the way. They waved to the crowd who cheered them at the tops of their voices. Sher Shah had succeeded in getting most of the bronze cannon he captured from us out of the Ganges mud and back into working order. These came next in the parade, pulled through the streets by some of our elephants which he’d rounded up.They were followed by ranks of our prisoners, forced to march in chains. According to one of our spies who got close disguised as a sweetmeat-seller, some were limping or had their wounds bandaged with dirty cloths. Others had raw, weeping sores where the chains bit into their flesh. All were gaunt and hungry-looking and held their eyes on the floor. The spy said the crowd yelled obscenities at them, jostled and pelted them with rotting rubbish and even lashed out at them with sticks.

  ‘They in turn were followed by further detachments of Sher Shah’s rejoicing troops and at last by Sher Shah himself riding high in a gilded howdah atop a tall elephant which had its tusks painted with gold leaf and its large saddle cloth, which reached down to the ground, embroidered with pearls and jewels. When the procession reached the main square of the city, Sher Shah dismounted to take his place on a great dais covered in purple cloth.

  ‘Here he distributed further gifts of our captured treasure to his chief supporters and granted assignments of our captured lands to them, and even gave them groups of our wretched prisoners to serve as slaves in their fields and quarries. Then, further shame to say, many of our former allies and vassal rulers came forward dressed in their ceremonial finery. They happily prostrated themselves in the dirt before Sher Shah to be pardoned and rewarded with positions in his army and promises of further bounty when you were defeated. They were followed by ambassadors from the rulers of the Deccan states such as diamond-rich Golconda who, seeing the opportunity to enrich themselves further from our weakness, promised aid to Sher Shah and were in turn gratified by grandiose assurances about portions of our land to be ceded to them.

  ‘Finally, to another loud blaring of trumpets, one of the most important of your former vassals – the Raja of Golpur – came forward and joined by many of Sher Shah’s commanders fell to his knees before Sher Shah. Together they begged him to accept the title of emperor – padishah – obsequiously and traitorously assuring him he was much better suited to hold it than ever you were. Twice Sher Shah refused with self-deprecating statements that all he sought was to help those suffering your oppression. He sought neither power nor reward for himself. However on the third occasion, beseeched in ever more flattering and vainglorious terms – the hyperbole of their words knew no limits – he accepted, saying, “If it is your settled wish, I can but agree. I promise to rule wisely and give justice to all.” Then a crown of gold set with rubies – held ready all the time; the whole thing was stage-managed, his initial refusals merely for show – was placed on his head by the Raja of Golpur and three of Sher Shah’s officers. All present prostrated themselves before him, traitorous noses pressed to the earth.

  ‘Later that night, Sher Shah staged a grand pageant. By the flaring light of torches young warriors from each of the states and clans now allied to him performed martial exercises before Sher Shah as he sat beneath a canopy of gold cloth on a tall, straight-backed gilded throne. A snarling tiger was carved into it, just above where Sher Shah’s head came. It had two large rubies for eyes which – I am told – glowed fiercely in the dark.Then after the performance was completed each in turn bowed low before the so-called emperor and he sprinkled their perspiring shaved heads with saffron, ground pearls, musk and ambergris as betokening the riches and sweet success he would make adhere to them and to the factions they represented.

  ‘The following day being a Friday, in the city’s main mosque – crowded to bursting point with Sher Shah’s commanders – the mullah too proclaimed Sher Shah emperor by reading the sermon – the khutba – in his name and traitorously and blasphemingly assigning to Sher Shah all your lands whether already occupied by him, as in Bengal, or far beyond his reach in Afghanistan and the Punjab.The next day, Sher Shah marched out to renew his advance upon us. With his new allies, his armies now number near two hundred thousand.’

  ‘Where is he now?’

  ‘About a hundred miles away, advancing slowly towards Agra.’

  ‘And Baba Yasaval, what of our own armies? Has the re-equipment progressed well?’

  ‘Yes, the armourers have done good work. Our men have new weapons. The foundries have blazed red fire day and night to produce more cannon. The horse brokers have supplied us with sufficient animals to re-mount our cavalry – even if some are not as big and strong as those bred on the steppes of our ancestral homelands.’

  ‘And how about the promises of further detachments of troops by our allies and by my half-brothers too?’

  ‘Here the news is less good. Several of our allies have procrastinated, citing the monsoon or local rebellions as reasons for delay in despatching troops or for only sending small detachments. Your younger half-brothers Hindal and Askari have, however, fulfilled and in the case of Hindal exceeded their promises, but your eldest half-brother Kamran has sent from the Punjab only a small detachment of two hundred and fifty cavalry, albeit mounted on fine horses. In response to our promptings for further assistance he will give no clear timescale and hints he must hold some troops back in case you suffer further reverses.’

  ‘But that is the certain way to ensure that we do suffer further defeats,’ Humayun snapped but then stopped himself from saying more. It would do no good to criticise his half-brother publicly.Yet his commander’s words chimed with his own private correspondence with Kamran. His half-brother had delayed responding to messages and – when he did reply – although suitably bellicose in his hostility to Sher Shah, he was noncommittal about despatching troops to serve under Humayun’s command. Instead, Kamran had offered to lead all his men to join the fight himself. He must have known that Humayun had to refuse, since to accept would be to leave the Punjab without a governor and without troops to keep order. Kamran seemed to be playing a waiting game, more anxious to preserve his personal position than t
o recover the lost provinces of their father’s empire if it meant adding to Humayun’s glory rather than his own.

  ‘I will write to my half-brother. But how many men can our commanders deploy now?’

  ‘A hundred and seventy thousand, Majesty.’

  ‘So for the present Sher Shah’s forces outnumber us?’

  ‘Yes, Majesty. Until reinforcements arrive from your brother Kamran and others.’

  Humayun felt a soft, warm evening breeze on his cheek as, not far from the settlement of Kanauj on the Ganges, he looked from his command position on a sandstone ridge dotted with scrubby bushes and the occasional stunted tree towards the opposite ridge where, if his scouts’ reports were correct, Sher Shah’s army would emerge the next morning. Briefly, the breeze reminded Humayun of the gentle winds of summer in his birthplace, Afghanistan. At the recollection a half-smile crossed his face only to be driven away by the ever-present knowledge that the two months since his military council had brought nothing but bad news.

  Sher Shah’s advance had continued, slow but relentless. That was perhaps only to be expected but what Humayun had not anticipated was the defection to Sher Shah of Hanif Khan, Raja of Moradabad, one of Humayun’s most senior cavalry commanders now Suleiman Mirza was dead, together with fifteen thousand of his men, all drawn from Hanif Khan’s feudal lands to the east of Delhi. Just after his desertion, Sher Shah – in an obviously prearranged move – had attacked a fortified town on the Ganges which had previously been under the command of Hanif Khan. Demoralised by Hanif Khan’s desertion, the few thousand of Humayun’s troops who had remained loyal had put up little resistance and the town had soon surrendered, clearing the way for Sher Shah’s advance. Humayun could scarcely blame these troops. Instead he reproached himself that he had devoted insufficient time to understanding the characters and ambitions of those around him – a mistake he would avoid in future.

  Equally troubling to Humayun had been reports of what was happening to his rear. There had been a rising in favour of Sher Shah in Hindal’s province of Alwar which, Hindal wrote, he’d only been able to put down with difficulty. Other rebellions had broken out among Hanif Khan’s vassals in the mountains near Delhi and Humayun had had to detach troops to suppress them who should have been training in preparation for joining his army.

  Worst of all had been the letter he had received from Kamran.While still pledging his loyalty to Humayun and the dynasty and his opposition to Sher Shah, he had questioned his brother’s military strategy in moving further east to confront Sher Shah two hundred miles and more beyond Agra. He had proposed instead preparing either Agra or Delhi for a siege and allowing Sher Shah to waste his strength in futile attempts to breach their great walls. Kamran had used his ‘disquiet’ as a pretext for refusing to send further troops, insisting that he had to hold them back under his own command to serve as a second line of defence if Humayun’s flawed strategy failed, as Kamran thought it had every chance of doing.

  ‘Majesty, Baba Yasaval is waiting to accompany you to review your troops.’ Jauhar broke into Humayun’s reverie. He was holding the reins of Humayun’s tall brown horse.

  ‘Very well.’ Humayun turned and mounted the horse to join Baba Yasaval a little further along the ridge. As the two men moved off, Humayun asked, ‘What are our scouts’ latest reports? Is there any change?’

  ‘No, Majesty. Sher Shah has encamped about two miles beyond the ridge opposite and from the sight and sound of the preparations being made in his camp tonight, it seems he will indeed attack tomorrow.’

  ‘Has the work been completed on the defensive earth ramparts I asked to be constructed halfway up this ridge?’

  ‘Yes, Majesty – you will see as we make our tour of inspection.’

  ‘Good. From the ramparts’ protection we should be able to blunt Sher Shah’s attack with cannon and musket fire as well as our archers’ arrows rather than charge headlong into a costly hand-to-hand engagement.’

  ‘But we’ll need to get in close, Majesty, if we are to vanquish rather than just avoid being vanquished.’

  ‘Of course. Once we’ve reduced Sher Shah’s numerical advantage and his men are nearing exhaustion we’ll sally out and destroy them. I want no half-measures either. It’s just the timing of our attack I want to control carefully.’

  By now, they were riding along the red earth of the ramparts. His men had worked well in the heat with their picks and shovels in the four days they’d been encamped here, athwart the route to Kanauj and the Ganges. The piles of earth and stone were six feet high everywhere and in most places ten. They stretched all along the mid section of the ridge which ran roughly north to south.

  ‘Who am I to reward or promote during this review, Baba Yasaval?’

  ‘We have chosen three men, Majesty. A wounded Afghani from south of Kabul named Wazim Pathan who fought well in one of the skirmishes as Sher Shah advanced. He saved one of his officers at the cost of losing his own right hand and part of his lower arm. We have a bag of silver coin for him to take with him as he makes the long journey back to his village. The second is a junior officer from Lahore who showed great bravery in fighting off an ambush by Sher Shah’s men on one of our equipment convoys. We have a jewelled sword for you to present to him as a reward. The third man you know well – young Hassan Butt from Ghazni. As you requested, he is to be given a greater position in the cavalry.’

  The troops chosen for Humayun to review were drawn up a little distance from the ramparts near where oxen and elephants had laboured to get his cannon into position. Humayun rode up and down the ranks of cavalry, some of whose horses, restless from standing in the heat, were tossing their heads or pawing the ground, and then on past the straighter lines of foot archers, infantry and gunners to a position in the centre where a dais had been erected. Those to be rewarded or promoted were called forward. A tear formed in the eye of the wounded Wazim Pathan, who was grey-haired and looked much older than many of Humayun’s troops. As he took the red velvet bag of coin in his remaining hand, he stammered, ‘Padishah, thank you. I will be able to hold my head up high in my village and be able to pay dowries for my daughters.’

  ‘You deserve all the respect you obtain,’ said Humayun. The officer from Lahore smiled with pride as Humayun handed him the sword. So too did young Hassan Butt, as usual wearing his pale blue turban, when before the whole army Humayun announced his appointment to command an elite band of cavalry.

  While all three men returned to the ranks, Humayun spoke to the troops assembled before him. ‘Tomorrow we expect to fight Sher Shah and his men. Even though his armies are strong, his cause is weak. The throne of Hindustan is mine by right as the son of Babur and the descendant of Timur. Sher Shah is the son of a horse dealer and the descendant of nameless bastards. Let us fight so well that by tomorrow evening he will lie in a traitor’s grave and even then occupy more of this land than he is entitled to. Never forget the justice of our cause. Remember that all I ask is that you fight as bravely as the men I have just rewarded. I swear to you I will attempt to outdo them myself.’

  Chapter 8

  Blood and Dust

  Taking no chances that Sher Shah would again surprise him by a night-time attack as he had at Chausa, Humayun had had his men awake and standing to, ready for action, three hours before dawn. But no attack had come and breakfast was now long over and the cooking fires doused.The morning was clear and even at around nine o’clock the heat was building up as Humayun, dressed for battle, paced once more along the ridge. His scouts had reported that Sher Shah had started to advance about an hour ago and should soon approach the ridge opposite.

  They were right. Only a few minutes later Humayun made out the first purple pennants topping the ridge. Then he saw one mail-clad rider, then another, then hundreds. Sher Shah’s vanguard of elite cavalry was deploying in the position Humayun had anticipated under the orders of a tall figure whose breastplate and helmet glinted in the morning sun. It was too far off to distinguish who it
was but Humayun assumed – hoped, even – that it was Sher Shah. He wanted to take Sher Shah on in personal combat once more to prove he was the better fighter and to see his enemy bleed into the dust. But he knew that like his men he must fight the temptation to risk all on one sudden desperate onslaught.

  A quarter of an hour later, Humayun saw the tall figure wave his sword to put the first ranks of his horsemen into motion. To Humayun there seemed about five thousand of them as they came galloping down from the ridge, yelling and shouting with their purple banners streaming behind them. They appeared, as Humayun expected, to be going to assault head-on his makeshift ramparts, constructed halfway up the ridge on which he stood.

  Already Baba Yasaval had given orders for Humayun’s artillery to open fire and the first of Sher Shah’s horsemen were crumpling under the impact of shot.Through the white cannon smoke now swirling around the valley below, Humayun watched others fall from their horses, struck by arrows or musket balls. Among them was one of the banner-carriers who, as he fell, lost his grip on the staff. His purple banner was blown into the path of another rider, becoming entangled with his horse’s legs and bringing animal and man to the ground. A moment or two later, Humayun saw to his intense surprise that rather than charging full tilt straight at his positions, the horsemen were dividing. Some were riding for one end of his line of earth ramparts and the others for the opposite end. They were attempting an encircling movement, seemingly prepared to take the inevitable casualties from Humayun’s gunners and archers as they swerved across his front line.

  Moments later, Humayun saw from the corner of his eye another large force of Sher Shah’s cavalry appear, galloping over the low saddle joining the two ridges at their northern end and clearly preparing to attack his less well-defended flanks.