Empire of the Moghul: The Serpent's Tooth

by Alex Rutherford

  All around, the whole column was coming to a halt in disarray. Musketmen were jumping from their saddles and pushing powder and shot down the barrels of their weapons with steel ramrods, preparing to fire. A little way in front of Shah Jahan’s elephant a junior officer – a squat man in a green tunic – was shouting orders to his small group of foot soldiers to form up. Shah Jahan heard another volley of shots and two of the infantrymen twisted and fell. One was immediately still. The other lay sprawled, heels twitching. One of his fellows, an elderly man with a thin grizzled beard, bent to help him but he too was hit. Dropping his spear he slumped over his comrade’s body.

  Everywhere was noise and confusion. Unless he acted quickly to master the situation panic could follow, thought Shah Jahan. And to do that he must dismount from his elephant and switch to horseback. Without waiting for the surviving mahout to bring the elephant to its knees, he climbed over the side of the jewel-encrusted howdah and dropped to the ground, bending his own knees to soften the impact. Landing lightly, he shouted to his qorchi, ‘Bring me my horse!’ But before the squire could do so a group of horsemen appeared through the dust and musket smoke, riding hard at the infantrymen in front of Shah Jahan. Encouraged by their green-clad officer, the foot soldiers stood their ground. At his command they crouched down in a rough V formation, their short spears ready to thrust at the horsemen. As the riders – a group of perhaps twenty – galloped closer, one, a slim figure with long black hair streaming behind his helmetless head, outdistanced the rest on his sweat-soaked grey charger. Although the soldier at the head of the V formation bravely held his place his spear was shaking so much in his nervous hands as he thrust at the Bijapuran that he missed. His attacker’s grey horse immediately rode him down, leaving him crumpled on the ground, his skull shattered by one of the horse’s hooves. The soldier behind and to his left was made of sterner stuff. He waited until the last moment and after taking careful aim stabbed upwards from his kneeling position with his spear. As he intended, it caught the horse in the throat. Immediately it stumbled and fell, sending its rider somersaulting over its neck to crash headfirst to the ground where he lay still, blood and brains spilling into his hair.

  Where was his own horse? Shah Jahan looked around to see his qorchi running towards him leading his chestnut stallion. Seizing the reins he leapt into the saddle and yelled to his bodyguard, ‘Follow me.’ Drawing his sword, he charged towards the enemy horsemen who were now surrounding the surviving foot soldiers. One of the attackers pulled so hard at his mount’s reins to wheel it to face the new threat that his horse reared and threw him backwards. Another rider armed with a long lance turned his black horse successfully and kicked hard towards Shah Jahan. When they closed the man made a wild thrust at Shah Jahan which missed, but Shah Jahan’s did not. As their horses passed he caught his enemy’s arm with a slashing stroke of his sword. The rider dropped his lance and began to lose control of his horse which careered off, cutting across the path of another enemy rider who could not prevent the bolting animal from crashing into his own mount so hard that both horses fell, taking their riders with them.

  A third horseman waving a long curved scimitar wildly above his head rode at Shah Jahan, who saw him only just in time to sway back in the saddle to avoid his flashing blade. However, recovering more quickly than his opponent, Shah Jahan thrust with his sword at the man’s groin. At the last moment the Bijapuran parried the blow with his scimitar but the weapon snapped as he did so. Shah Jahan tried again. This time the thrust got through, penetrating his enemy’s abdomen, and the man fell. Reining in, Shah Jahan saw that others of the attacking horsemen were now turning and beginning to gallop back in the direction from which they had so recently come.

  Heart thumping with the excitement of battle, Shah Jahan’s first instinct was to pursue and destroy this small band of enemy cavalry, but he quickly realised to do so would be foolish. As the army commander he should leave that to others. He must go to the rear of the column where the conflict had originally broken out to see how the fighting was progressing there. As he rode through the smoke and dust he noticed several of his men lying motionless on the ground and others being tended by their comrades. The body of a war elephant was slumped nearby, as well as those of several horses. Another horse, its left foreleg shattered, was standing neighing piteously. However, he saw little sign of fighting until he approached the rear where the baggage and powder carts had been travelling.

  Through a gap in the increasingly thick smoke he made out a number of stationary six-wheeled ox carts. Two of the oxen pulling the leading vehicle were slumped in the shafts, wounded. Their drivers were struggling to cut them from the traces while those of the wagons behind were attempting to manoeuvre around them, shouting at their oxen and pulling at their yokes. Just then Shah Jahan saw six riders clad entirely in black galloping towards them. Each was carrying a double bow and was accompanied by another man holding in his gloved hand two arrows with flaming pitch-soaked cloths bound round them – the same tactics that had killed Abdul Aziz’s father Ahmed Aziz, Shah Jahan just had time to think before the archers all took flaming arrows and fitted them to their bows. Rising in their stirrups they pulled back the drawstrings ready to fire at the wagons, where the drivers had now succeeded in cutting one of the wounded oxen from the shaft of the first cart. A musket ball hit a black-clad bowman before he could discharge his arrow and he pitched from his horse. As he did so his flaming arrow caught his clothing, setting it afire. Screaming in agony, he rolled over and over on the ground trying to extinguish it.

  A great blast of hot air blew past Shah Jahan, deafening him and nearly unseating him. As he struggled to control his wildly bucking mount, he wondered what had happened. Then he realised the wagons must have been powder carts and that at least one of the archers’ fire-arrows had penetrated an oiled cloth cover and ignited the powder bags inside. He succeeded in quietening his horse but felt a sharp pain in his left cheek. Removing his gauntlet and probing with his fingers he discovered a wood splinter protruding from it and plucked it out. Glancing down through eyes stinging with grit and dust, he saw several other splinters embedded in his horse’s flank and his gilded saddle. Like him, both were splattered with patches of a red, sticky substance – the flesh of the oxen and their drivers. As the dust began to settle he saw that two of the wagons had exploded. The mutilated bodies of men with fragments of singed cloth still adhering to them were strewn across the ground, mixed with those of the oxen and pieces of the carts. The acrid smell of powder mingled with the sweeter one of burned flesh.

  One of his officers rode up. Shah Jahan saw his lips move but could hear nothing. Soon, though, a little of his hearing returned and he made out what the man was repeating. ‘They’re fleeing, Majesty.’ Although still groggy from the explosion, Shah Jahan knew that ‘fleeing’ was not the right word. He had not defeated his enemy. After inflicting casualties on his forces in a successful raid they were beating a hasty but tactical retreat. They – not the Moghuls – were the victors today.

  This was not how it should be … not after the haughty Golcondans had predictably fallen out with the Bijapurans and retreated back to their own territories, leaving the latter to continue the war on their own. It was certainly not what he had anticipated when a month previously he’d led his column out from Burhanpur to sweep the rugged hinterland beyond the Tapti river where groups of the invaders had been raiding isolated fortresses and killing his cossids, his messengers, and his tax gatherers. In fact many things had surprised him. Like discovering that among those his men had captured were local people who had joined the invaders. Terrified for their lives, they had tried to excuse their treachery, some claiming they were desperate for plunder to help them buy food during what was becoming a serious drought, others pleading that their families were suffering because of the high taxes he had imposed to pay and feed his large army.

  But he had had little choice. If he didn’t raise the taxes, how could he recruit an army suf
ficient to deal with the invaders without depleting his treasuries? The expedition had scarcely been a success, even before this ambush. Nearly every time his army had encountered groups of enemy fighters they had fled before he could bring the full weight of his firepower to bear – but not before they had inflicted casualties as they had done just now.

  An hour later, Shah Jahan’s mood was grim as he addressed the senior officers clustered in a circle around him. ‘How did the enemy succeed in taking us unawares?’ He fixed his eye on his rearguard commander, Ashok Singh, one of the sons of the Raja of Amber and a promising young officer.

  ‘They saw us approaching, Majesty. A prisoner told us how they hid in scrub some way from our column and our pickets until we had passed. They were all mounted – they even had spare horses to carry off booty and their own wounded – so they were able to circle to our rear. Then they galloped into the attack from directly behind our column, taking advantage of those great clouds of dust we were raising, which enabled them to be almost upon us before we were aware of them.’

  ‘Didn’t you post pickets to your rear?’

  ‘No, Majesty. I am sorry.’

  ‘You should be. But you are not the only one to blame. We must all learn from this. It’s not just a question of designating more pickets but also of trying to see into our enemies’ minds and understanding their tactics.’ There was no response beyond some nods from his commanders, whose dejection was clear from their expressions, so Shah Jahan continued, ‘Together we will succeed, I’m sure of that. But now we must consider what our immediate moves should be. How many of our men did we lose?’

  ‘Not too many – fewer than a hundred, I think, but we also lost a lot of equipment in the attack on the baggage train. The massive explosion in the powder wagons knocked several cannon from their limbers and set some food supply wagons ablaze.’

  ‘Well then, there is nothing for it but to return to Burhanpur, where we can rest and resupply,’ Shah Jahan responded curtly. ‘The council is dismissed.’ As his officers turned away, Shah Jahan knew they were loyal and had felt the reverse as much as he had, but that was not the point. They should all – himself included – have learned better from Ahmed Aziz’s initial defeat. It would be at their peril if they continued to underestimate their enemies’ strength and cunning.

  ‘Look at those kites circling over there,’ Mumtaz said to Shah Jahan as they stood with their arms around each other on one of the screened balconies of the Burhanpur fort, watching the sun set orange through the dust haze on the horizon. ‘Some poor animal must be dying out there on the plain.’ Shah Jahan nodded. It was becoming a common sight. The monsoon rains had still not come. The trees silhouetted against the sunset were stark and leafless. There was scarcely a blade of grass to be seen and all the crops had withered. The normally broad Tapti river was reduced to a muddy trickle. Man and beast struggled to get precious water from the stream and its few surrounding green slime-fringed puddles. Domestic beasts as well as wild ones were dying now, their carcasses dried husks of skin and bone on the dry earth.

  According to reports from outlying villages people too were beginning to die, most from starvation, others killed by tigers driven by hunger from the mountains and jungles to gorge empty bellies on human prey. Some country people, hollow-eyed and skeletal, had made their way to Burhanpur, babies sucking at their mothers’ shrivelled, and milkless breasts. He had ordered them to be given what food could be spared from the commissariat’s limited supplies but his soldiers had to be his first priority with the rebellion still unquelled. Perhaps the latest sweep of the country on which he was embarking the next day with a division of his horsemen would succeed in bringing more of his enemies to battle on his terms than he had done previously. By changing his tactics and leaving his heavy weapons and infantry behind, he would enable his column to move faster and respond more flexibly to the feints and raids at which his enemies appeared so proficient. What’s more, the very mobility of his new force might allow him to approach closer to the rebels before being detected.

  As if divining the direction of his thoughts, Mumtaz broke into his introspection. Looking up into his face, she asked, ‘Why must you lead the troops tomorrow? After all, most of the army will remain here and you have competent commanders enough. Why can’t you trust them with the task?’

  Shah Jahan smiled. It was a question he had debated with himself, so he had a ready answer. ‘I must go because my presence will hearten our men and I believe overawe many of the country people, some of whom may sympathise with the rebels, who are making them extravagant promises. I will wear my grandfather Akbar’s gilded breastplate and helmet. He always told me that an emperor must project an image of power and authority beyond that of an ordinary man and that his people would love him for it. He proved the wisdom of his assertion time and time again.’

  ‘But there is a risk in making yourself so conspicuous, isn’t there? Don’t forget you are as susceptible as anyone to weapons and wounds.’

  ‘I know that I am as mortal as any man. To delude myself otherwise would be a first step to disaster and perhaps madness, but I must bear the increased risk for the sake of the empire and our dynasty.’

  Looking down at Mumtaz in the gathering dusk he saw from her expression that she was not fully convinced so he added quickly, ‘Besides, I will take care, and my equipment and bodyguard are the best there could be.’ As he spoke the last rays of the sun dipped beneath the dusty western horizon. He bent and kissed Mumtaz. How much he had to lose.

  Rai Singh flung himself from his horse and hurried towards Shah Jahan. ‘Majesty … we surprised a small group of Bijapuran horsemen as they rested after their midday meal. They were sheltering from the heat in the shade of a deserted herdsman’s hut. Two got away – one who was guarding their horses and a second who had wandered off to relieve himself and somehow reached his mount – but we captured the rest. Look, they’re coming now.’

  Shading his eyes against the metallic glare of the late afternoon sun, Shah Jahan saw the scouts he had despatched under Rai Singh to sweep the arid countryside ahead of his main force galloping into the camp. Five were holding the reins of the horses on which, hands bound behind their backs, the prisoners were swaying. Four of the prisoners were men of about his own age but the fifth was much younger – a tall youth whose dirt-streaked red and gold tunic hung loosely on his slender frame. The guards were keeping him separate from the rest and the youth’s eyes flicked nervously from side to side.

  ‘Did you interrogate them, Rai Singh?’ Shah Jahan asked.

  ‘Yes, Majesty. Two of us took them individually into the herdsman’s hut. We kept them blindfolded and my comrade interspersed promises of reward with my threats of torture. The four men were brave enough, refusing to reveal anything, but that youth began to piss himself with fear when I suggested that iron claws were being heated ready to rip his bowels from his belly. He was only too eager to accept my friend’s subsequent softly voiced promises of his freedom and poured out all he knew. The other Bijapurans suspect he has betrayed them and have been yelling threats of what they’ll do to him. That’s why we’ve kept them apart.’

  ‘Good work, Rai Singh. What did he tell you?’

  ‘Charge!’ yelled Shah Jahan. He and his horsemen kicked their mounts into a gallop towards the Bijapuran camp one and a half miles away. The camp was a collection of tents and makeshift shelters made from the dead branches of trees clustered around the sticky mud which was all that remained of a small lagoon. At the far side of the lagoon were the huts of what looked to have been a poor village even before the onset of the drought. After a brief consultation with his officers about the information provided by the captured youth on the whereabouts of his enemy’s camp and their strength, Shah Jahan had decided on an attack just after dawn when his opponents should be preoccupied with their ablutions and their breakfast.

  During the long moonlit ride towards the camp he had worried whether – since two Bijapurans had esca
ped – his enemy might be on high alert. However, he had convinced himself that even if his opponents attached any importance to the seizure of their scouts, from their past experience they would not expect his own forces to respond so quickly to any information they obtained. Neither would they expect them to cover the thirty miles between the point of capture and their camp so fast.

  But his fears seemed to have been groundless, Shah Jahan had thought as, breasting some low hillocks, he and his men had looked down on the camp with its smoking cooking fires and lines of tethered horses and soldiers moving to and fro on their normal duties. His men had quickly overwhelmed the few sentries posted around the hillocks. Now as he and his troops galloped, green banners streaming in the wind and horses’ hooves pounding the hard-baked ground, towards the Bijapuran camp his enemies were running towards the horse lines buckling on their swords, grabbing lances from their pyramid racks and preparing to face his onslaught. But they would not be in time, thought Shah Jahan, urging his horse into an even faster gallop.

  Then above the battle cries of his men and the drumming hooves he heard a loud crash, and then another. The sounds were coming from his front and left. Turning his head in that direction he saw the branches of several of the Bijapuran shelters had been thrown aside to reveal cannon which were already being brought into action. Musketeers too were crouching behind the cannon, steadying their long-barrelled weapons on the limbers as they fired. Both cannon and musket balls were finding their mark.