Empire of the Moghul: The Serpent's Tooth (34 page)

Two Sarus cranes rose slowly from the banks of the Chambal and flew along the river searching for fish, their large red heads and grey and white plumage reflected in the Chambal’s glistening pewter waters. As Nicholas watched, seated on the stump of a decayed tree and grateful that the afternoon heat was slowly dying, the long, slim snout of a ghariyal snapped out of the water, also intent on an evening meal. The ghariyal was a crocodile unlike any other Nicholas had seen. Local people had assured him that it was harmless and ate only fish, while warning him that more familiar flesh-hungry crocodiles also lurked in the shallows and that on no account, however hot or tempted, should he swim in the river.

Hearing a noise behind him, Nicholas glanced round. It wasn’t a crocodile – fish-eating or otherwise – but two or three of his fellow officers heading for Dara’s command tent and a meeting to which he had also been summoned. Reminded of the time, Nicholas stood up, brushed down his clothes and also began to walk towards the tent. As he did so he wondered what the council was to be about. The army had arrived at the Chambal that morning after five days’ hot, slow and dusty journey. He presumed the discussion would concern the crossing of the river to confront Aurangzeb and Murad – whether the Chambal was slow and shallow enough to ford safely or whether they needed to consume time in building a bridge of boats.

Five minutes into the meeting, standing in the second row of the sixty commanders clustering around the low divan on which Dara was seated beneath his tent’s awning, Nicholas found out that he was wrong. Gesturing to a travel-grimed figure standing beside the divan, Dara said, ‘Ravi Kumar here has just returned from a two-day scouting mission southwards along the Chambal. Ravi, tell me again what you saw there for the benefit of my officers.’

Ravi Kumar nodded. ‘Last evening I encountered Aurangzeb and Murad’s army fording the river twenty or so miles downstream. Much of the vanguard was already across, but the rest of the army were lighting cooking fires, seemingly prepared to spend the night on the far side.’

As the scout had spoken his first words a gasp of surprise had run round the assembled officers. Now one, a tall, clipped-bearded man Nicholas recognised as Raja Ram Singh Rathor, the ruler of a small state near Gwalior with a high reputation for both bravery and military sagacity, spoke. ‘They’ve moved far faster than we’d thought, Highness. Do they have all their equipment with them?’

Dara motioned to Ravi Kumar to answer.

‘I couldn’t stay too long or get too close but I think they had the leading elements of their baggage train with them. Further wagons seemed to be arriving all the time and a dust cloud on the horizon suggested many more men and much equipment were yet to come. My guess is that it will take all of tomorrow for them to complete the crossing and re-form on the near bank.’

‘Thank you, Ravi Kumar,’ said Dara. He turned to his commanders. ‘Can we break camp and reach them before they have finished crossing?’

After a brief pause Raja Ram Singh Rathor spoke once more, ‘No, Highness. Not if we wish to have our heavy guns and war elephants with us as I think we must. Until now we’ve only made eight or so miles a day. Even if we pushed our animals harder I can’t see the full strength of the army being able to reach the crossing in less than two days. By then Aurangzeb and Murad will be on the march to Agra and we’ll be hard pressed to catch them.’

‘I feared as much,’ said Dara. ‘In the short time since Ravi and the other scouts returned I’ve been looking at maps and talking to some junior officers whose homes are along the Chambal. Even though our enemies have crossed the river, we are considerably to the north of them and much nearer to Agra than they are. However quickly they move, it seems to me if we break camp before dawn and head due west from here we should be able to cut them off and position ourselves across their path on advantageous ground. What do you think?’

‘What sort of country do we have to traverse?’ asked another voice. Nicholas couldn’t see the speaker.

‘I’m told it’s mostly flat with few obstructions, although in places there is some deepish sand which may slow the heavy equipment a little. Still, we should have plenty of time for our march.’

The voice spoke again, ‘Thank you, Highness. In that case there should be no problems. The men and animals are not so exhausted that they will not find sufficient refreshment in a truncated night’s rest.’ His words were convoluted but their meaning clear and they were greeted by general shouts of agreement and nodding of turbaned heads from some other officers.

‘We’re decided then,’ said Dara. ‘I leave it to you, my trusted commanders, to make the necessary preparations. Make sure the men get an extra ration of food. It will hearten them. Tell them that I will reward them well, as I will you, when victory is ours.’ With that, Dara rose and walked slowly back into the interior of his tent.

As he too turned away to make his way in the evening sunlight back to his own quarters, Nicholas couldn’t help wondering whether, generous as were Dara’s words about food and rewards for the troops and welcome as was his confidence in his officers, the prince shouldn’t himself be taking a more central role. Not least, it would give him a chance to get to know some of his commanders better, particularly some of the vassal rulers who had only arrived at Agra at his father’s summons just before the army left the city and had had little chance to meet Dara. To have full loyalty to a leader – particularly a prospective emperor fighting a civil war – a subordinate needed to know him and his virtues in addition to obtaining a general warm feeling about his own future prospects. From his own experience of the two northern campaigns Nicholas knew that neither Aurangzeb nor even Murad would have been so casual, but then they lacked Dara’s obvious charisma and their campaigns had ended in ignominious defeat. God willing they would suffer that fate again.

The Frenchman collapsed slowly from his saddle to hit the sandy ground with a gentle thud. Quickly Nicholas jumped from his own horse and ran over to him. Yet another casualty from the heat, he was sure. Reaching the man’s crumpled form he heaved him over on to his back and with the help of some other of his comrades quickly unbuckled the man’s heavy steel breastplate and lifted it from his chest. It was hot to the touch from the blistering sun. The Frenchman’s hands were twitching. His face was reddish-purple and his pale green eyes were rolling in his head as Nicholas unhooked his own water bottle from his belt, unstoppered it and tried to tip some of the warm liquid into the man’s mouth. A little went between his cracked lips and half-clenched teeth. Most trickled down his stubbly chin and neck.

The man began to cough and Nicholas poured a little more water. ‘Get a
dhooli
– a litter – to carry him back to the camp, but before you do put some damp cloths on his forehead,’ he ordered. The man might still survive. He hoped he would. The Frenchman was a stern fighter who had come to Hindustan from Bordeaux with a French trading party which he had quit for reasons he had never quite made clear but others said were connected to a missing ruby the size of a duck egg. If he did live, he would be luckier than many others, thought Nicholas, taking a swig himself from his water bottle. Three others of his men had collapsed – two dying on the spot – and he had seen several lifeless bodies carried away from the neighbouring regiment of infantry, arms dangling over the edges of simple stretchers fashioned from dead branches and palm leaves.

Just as they had planned, after three days’ gruelling march Dara’s forces had succeeded in blocking Aurangzeb and Murad’s army’s route to Agra, siting their camp on some low-lying hills – hillocks, really – which straddled the great trunk road to Agra about ten miles from the city at a place Nicholas had been told was called Samugarh. When they had realised that their initial plan to march north had been thwarted Aurangzeb and Murad had turned west amid great clouds of dust, attempting to outflank Dara’s vast army. In response he had countermarched his forces, shadowing his brothers and occasionally sending out small raiding parties to snatch prisoners or probe the strength of pickets. He and his officers had learned little in the process other than that his enemies seemed determined, prone neither to panic nor to surrender.

After two days of such manoeuvring back and forth on the plains around Samugarh, this morning, 7 June, the two armies had deployed in full battle formation, Dara retaining his slight initial advantage of the somewhat higher ground. As the airless morning had drawn on and the heat increased, none of the three brothers had appeared to wish to push for a decisive engagement. Nicholas had even wondered whether there might be a chance for negotiations, though this seemed unlikely. All that had happened for the past five hours was that both sides had stood still or sat on horseback in the broiling sun, which was now at its midday zenith. Both men and horses were falling victim to the heat. Flocks of bald-headed scrawny vultures were already perching on the bodies of some of the dead animals, pecking at eyes and bellies now spilling out skeins of bluish intestines, unwanted portents to the men of their own potential fate in battle when it was finally joined.

Glancing round, Nicholas saw that there was still little movement in the ranks of either army other than young water-bearers running with their gourds and bottles to attempt to slake the thirst of the soldiers although there were not enough of them – nor enough water – to prevent more men collapsing from the heat. In the next two hours Nicholas lost two further men, including one – a ginger-haired Scot named Alex Graham – who had soldiered with him since his first northern campaign with Murad and had begged him to take the five silver coins in the pouch at his waist and get them back to his family in the Scottish highlands. Nicholas had assured him he would, while realising how difficult it would be even if he himself survived, with civil unrest in Britain as well as Hindustan.

As he pondered this question he saw sudden movement in the ranks of the army opposite. Were they going to attack at last? Nicholas shouted to his men to prepare for action, glad that the waiting might be over – nothing could be worse than standing in this awful heat. A few minutes later he realised that there would be no battle that day. The enemy appeared to be retreating back to their camp, which was about a mile behind their current position. Soon the order came from Dara through one of his
qorchis
to return to their own camp on the hillocks. At least he would live another day, thought Nicholas as he turned his horse and gestured to his men to follow.

T
he next morning Nicholas was up before dawn. In truth he had slept little that night. The war council he had attended the previous evening had agreed unanimously that rather than spend another day waiting for their opponents to make a move they should take advantage of their numerical superiority – eighty thousand men compared to their opponents’ fifty thousand – and seize the initiative, attacking with some of their elite cavalry early in the morning. As for Nicholas and his mercenaries, Dara had ordered them to form a reserve just behind his command tent, ready to reinforce any weak points or exploit any breakthroughs. In doing so they were to utilise their military experience and steadiness under fire to the full, bolstering the nervous and restraining the rash.

Nicholas made a quick round of his men, shaking awake any so nerveless as still to be asleep, giving a word of encouragement here, checking the sharpness of a blade there, but above all exhorting everyone to carry as much water as they could. Afterwards he climbed with his morning meal to the top of the hillock around which his men were encamped to survey the opposing battle lines, each stretching more than a mile and a half as they faced each other across the dry plains. While he sipped his clay cup of lassi – a mixture of yogurt and water – ate several round chapattis, delicious when hot from the skillet as these were, and gnawed on a bony hunk of chicken thigh, he looked beyond Dara’s scarlet command tent and his army’s front lines to those of the enemy. He saw that Aurangzeb and Murad’s men were also up and busy. Even at a distance his keen eyesight could make out howdahs being hoisted on to elephants and troops of horsemen preparing to mount in front of the orderly ranks of tents. Suddenly – it could not have been more than an hour after dawn – he heard the crash of artillery and white smoke billowed from the batteries of heavy bronze cannon opposite, drawn up in the centre of the enemy position near a large pavilion which he imagined must be the headquarters of Aurangzeb and Murad. So Dara’s brothers were as unwilling as he was to put off the decisive encounter any longer.