Empire of the Moghul: The Serpent's Tooth (25 page)

‘I summoned you at this late hour because the news is too grave to keep until tomorrow.’ Shah Jahan looked round at his counsellors, whose sleepy faces and hastily pulled on apparel showed that many had not long left their beds. He could still scarcely believe what he had read in the two despatches that had just arrived within half an hour of each other despite having been written over a week apart. For many days he had been waiting for the news that his army was safely across the Oxus and advancing on Samarkand, but it hadn’t come. Instead every despatch had related a series of excuses – the river was too high to cross and they were waiting for the level to fall … the supplies of fodder for the baggage animals were running low and they were waiting for more … fever had broken out among the foreign mercenaries, who were unused to the food and the climate … Uzbeks had been seen on the opposite bank of the Oxus preparing to oppose their crossing so they might need to feint to cross elsewhere.

He had tried to be patient, telling himself that the reasons for the delay were understandable and that there was still enough good campaigning weather for Samarkand to be taken. However, as time went by he had begun to suspect he was being played along. Ashok Singh himself would never do such a thing but, as the Rajput general made increasingly explicit, he was only writing what Murad instructed him … More and more he had begun to detect in Ashok Singh’s words a hesitancy, embarrassment even, and so it had now proved. Holding the first of the new despatches in a hand still trembling with anger, he began to read its contents out loud: ‘
Majesty, your son commands me to inform you that the Moghul armies have had no choice but to retreat southwards. It is still too hazardous to ford the Oxus while all the time our enemies are gathering, their recent differences forgotten, with a single aim – to annihilate us at the first opportunity. Only a week ago an Uzbek raiding party crossed the river several miles upstream of our camp and massacred some of our pickets. We found them the next morning, their heads sliced from their shoulders and their severed genitals protruding from their mouths. Our men are becoming disheartened and complaining that they are unsuited to fight in these lands which are unknown to them. Also, the season is now against us – the first snow has fallen and our men are ill equipped to withstand the rigours of a harsh winter. We are therefore on your son’s instructions falling back on Balkh where we will await your further orders. Ashok Singh.
’

As Shah Jahan stopped speaking a heavy silence fell. Not a single man was willing to meet his eye. He knew only too well what they were thinking – that Murad had little stomach for a fight. And they were right, especially given this second and latest despatch, written this time by Murad himself.

‘That is not the worst of it. There is more, this time from my son in a despatch which almost overtook Ashok Singh’s.
Father, by the time you read this I and your forces will have withdrawn from Balkh and will be on the road back towards Hindustan. It was impossible to hold the city. Learning that thousands of Uzbeks were pouring over the Oxus intending to besiege us, I decided to fall back to Kabul rather than risk the massive losses that would have followed. I did not want the blood of so many of our men on my conscience and trust that you will understand and agree with my decision. Your dutiful son Murad
. Dutiful son!’ Shah Jahan could no longer contain himself. ‘He has disobeyed me. He knows his orders were to move immediately on Samarkand. Instead he invented excuses until the time when decisive action would have resulted in certain victory had passed. Now he has forfeited what gains he made without a fight. I have decided to strip him of his command. But the immediate question is what orders to send north to Ashok Singh who, until I appoint a new commander, will take charge of my armies. What do you advise?’ He waited, but again no one spoke. ‘Well, doesn’t anyone have anything to suggest?’

But as he looked around his counsellors, Shah Jahan knew in his heart that this was as much his fault as it was Murad’s. Wanting to teach Aurangzeb a lesson, he had sent an inexperienced youth into the field in pursuit of his long-held goal of Samarkand. But he could never have anticipated that Murad would fail him so badly.

‘Majesty.’ A veteran counsellor at last broke the silence. ‘The present year’s campaign cannot now succeed – too much time has been lost and snow will soon block the northern passes leaving your armies cut off from Hindustan. Why not order your forces to overwinter in Kabul? Then, when the thaw comes, they can advance north again – perhaps taking a different route through the Hindu Kush to surprise our enemies.’

Shah Jahan reflected for some moments then nodded. ‘Of course you are right. Just because one attempt has failed is no reason to give up, especially after the expense of raising and equipping a large army. I still believe we have a realistic chance of succeeding. Also, to give up so easily would demean us in the eyes of our enemies, whether Uzbek or Persian, and encourage them to think the Moghul armies have lost their teeth.’ All around him his counsellors, now thoroughly awake, were murmuring their approval. ‘Good. In that case I will send immediate orders to Ashok Singh that the army is to winter in Kabul and send instructions to the governor there to make arrangements to accommodate and feed them.’

‘And the new commander, Majesty? A decision is needed,’ the veteran counsellor prompted.

‘I intend to recall Prince Aurangzeb from Gujarat. He was anxious for the command. Let him now prove he is worthy of it – and of my trust.’

N
icholas swerved to avoid the spear hurtling towards him. It missed by inches, thudding harmlessly into the sandy ground, but his enemy – crouching a few feet away behind his dead horse for cover – wasn’t finished with him. As Nicholas wheeled his own mount, intending to ride him down or slash at him with his outstretched sword, the man drew a long curved knife from his sash. When Nicholas was almost on him, he flung it. Nicholas jerked his head back but not quite in time and felt the sharp blade cut into his cheek, sending red blood running down his stubbled face and into his mouth. Ignoring the pain, he leant forward and thrust at the man, but he had misjudged. As the tribesman ducked down again behind the horse’s carcass, Nicholas’s sword swished through empty air. He wrenched his horse’s head round to attack the man once more but as he did so the beast stumbled, lost its balance and crashed to the ground. Nicholas felt himself catapulted over its head to hit the ground with a thump.

Dazed by the fall, he spat the metallic-tasting blood from his mouth and struggled to his feet, but in a moment the tribesman was on him. Nicholas smelled the stench of sweat as his opponent, a squat burly man, knocked him back to the ground and straddled him, pushing his grinning face with its sour garlic breath close as his strong fingers fastened on Nicholas’s windpipe and squeezed, intent on throttling the life out of him. Bucking and kicking, Nicholas tried to dislodge him but the man was heavy and his own strength began to fade as he fought for breath. His lungs felt as if they were filling with hot sand and his eyes seemed ready to burst from their sockets when suddenly a spray of blood blinded him for a moment and the man’s grip relaxed. Wiping his eyes with the back of his hand, Nicholas saw that someone had severed his assailant’s head. His saviour – whoever it was – had already disappeared but Nicholas gave him silent thanks as he pushed the dead torso aside and, still gasping for air, got to his knees and looked around him.

The attack on the Moghul vanguard had come out of nowhere as they had advanced through a defile on one of the final stages of their long march north from Kabul through the jagged mountains of the Hindu Kush, still snow-capped even in summer. The defile had been so narrow in places that no more than three men could ride comfortably abreast. The overhanging cliffs, rising two hundred feet, had meant travelling in almost perpetual shadow. Perhaps that was why the scouts hadn’t spotted the tribesmen perched in the jumble of rocks above, who had suddenly begun firing down on them with deadly accuracy. Unable to see their assailants and with men falling from their saddles all along the column, they had had no option but to kick on their horses and ride as hard as they could through the defile, zigzagging wherever there was room to put off their enemy’s aim. More riders had fallen but eventually the remainder had emerged, men and horses alike breathing hard, out on to these stony plains, as barren as the defile but at least with enough space for the Moghul troops to deploy.

At last they had been able to see their enemy – a mass of mounted warriors in the striped green and red robes, sheepskin jerkins and shaggy black woollen hats of the Turkomans – who, seated on their wiry ponies, had been waiting, correctly anticipating that their musketeers would flush the leading Moghul troops out of the defile and into their path. Five hundred of Nicholas’s foreign mercenaries with about a thousand of Ashok Singh’s Rajputs whose turn it had been to form the vanguard of Aurangzeb’s army that day had tried frantically to form a line as the Turkomans galloped towards them, waving their weapons and yelling their wild war cries. In the chaos Nicholas had heard Rajput officers shouting commands as they tried to rally their men but all too quickly the Turkomans had smashed into them, slashing with their broad scimitars and rising in their stirrups to fire balls from their long-barrelled muskets –
jezails
they called them – or arrows from their double-curved bows.

Sword still gripped in his right hand, Nicholas backed against the dead horse and again looked around. His own mount had disappeared after throwing him. As far as he could tell, the fight was in the balance but if anything the Moghuls were getting the worst of it. To his left, orange-clad Rajputs, steel-tipped lances in their hands, were galloping towards a cluster of Turkoman musketeers and archers firing from behind some large boulders. Above the clamour, he heard a Rajput scream as an arrow tore into the exposed flesh of his neck; then a second and a third Rajput simultaneously tumbled from their saddles, both hit by musket balls. Directly ahead, he made out a group of his own men – Frenchmen and Danes – fighting desperately but determinedly as, outnumbered, they tried to break through a ring of Turkoman horsemen who had surrounded them. Suddenly one man, blond hair streaming from beneath a domed helmet, broke through the Turkomans’ cordon only to be hit by a musket ball and slip from the saddle. For a moment his foot caught in his stirrup but then the stirrup leather broke and after rolling over on the ground a couple of times he lay still. Nicholas recognised him as one of the Danish pirates who had joined the mercenaries after his ship had been wrecked off Bengal. He must find himself a horse and go to his men’s aid if he could …

Suddenly, he heard a drumming of hooves and turning saw fresh Moghul troops galloping out of the defile and debouching across the open ground towards the fight. A cluster of fluttering orange banners emblazoned with a flaring yellow sun at their head told him that Ashok Singh himself was leading them, and sure enough he glimpsed the Rajput’s straight-backed figure in his glittering steel breastplate riding a tall white horse and closely surrounded by his bodyguard. Their drawn swords glinted before them, bright as fire in the slanting evening sunlight. But Nicholas had no further time for reflection. A huge Turkoman with a curly black beard on a bay horse had spotted him and was galloping towards him, intent on riding him down. Looking round, Nicholas saw a spear lying close by. Discarding his sword, he bent and grabbed it just in time. Leaping to one side, out of the rider’s path, he swung the shaft horizontally and succeeded in inserting it between the animal’s hooves, bringing it crashing down on to its flank and trapping its rider’s left leg beneath it. As the Turkoman struggled vainly to free himself, Nicholas, taking care to avoid the horse’s flailing hooves, leapt on him and drawing his dagger cut though the man’s jugular in a single, swift movement.

Breathing heavily Nicholas clambered to his feet, bloodied dagger in hand, looking around for the next threat and expecting any moment to feel a musket ball or sword blade cut into his flesh. Seeing the dead man’s bay horse standing nearby, Nicholas lunged for the rope reins. Though shaking with shock, the animal seemed unharmed beyond a gash on its right front fetlock where the spearshaft had caught it. Patting its neck, Nicholas hauled himself into the saddle, and urging it cautiously forward headed for a piece of higher ground to get a better view of what was happening. Now that Ashok Singh and his men had appeared, they could surely put the Turkomens to flight …

Bending over the horse’s neck to whisper words of encouragement, he guided it carefully around dead and dying bodies and gained the hillock safely. Looking down, he saw Ashok Singh about a quarter of a mile away fighting like a man possessed. Nicholas watched him decapitate one Turkoman with a swing of his double-headed battle axe, then hack into the right arm of a second who dropped his spear and turned away, his arm hanging limp at his side. All around, Turkomans suddenly seemed to be riding or scrambling across the stony ground out of the battle. His own French and Danish troops had fought their way clear of their encircling opponents and were joining up with Ashok Singh’s men. Not for the first time in the campaign the Rajput prince and his warriors indeed seemed to be turning the battle in the Moghuls’ favour.