all but surrounded. If he were not to die he had to break through. Extending Alamgir before him in his right hand and bending low to his horse’s neck, he made for the only gap he could see in the Uzbeks around him.
Moments later, he was in open ground, gasping for breath. Blood was trickling into his right eye from a wound in his temple. An Uzbek warrior had nearly succeeded in driving a spear through his head. Only Babur’s swift, sideways dodge had prevented it and even so the sharp point had caught him. Attempting to brush away the blood and with his vision blurred, he tried to make out which way to ride to get back to his main force.
After a minute or so his vision began clearing though blood was still oozing from his wound. Hastily Babur cut a strip of cloth from his horse’s saddle blanket with his dagger and tied it round his head. Peering round, he realised that his initial attack had failed and that his terrified horse had carried him off at a tangent into a no man’s land between the Uzbeks and his own remaining forces. He was in imminent danger again. Kicking his chestnut, he galloped quickly back towards his own lines, expecting at any moment to feel the bite of an arrow or a spear. It did not come.
There was no time to discuss fresh tactics with his commanders when Babur regained his lines near where Ali Gosht was sitting on his grey horse overlooking the action, holding his force in reserve as ordered. Even as he reined in his nearly spent mount, Babur heard a great roar and a clashing of swords on shields behind him. A few seconds more and the Uzbeks would be on them. ‘I will take command here,’ Babur yelled to Ali Gosht. ‘Send riders along the lines to Wazir Khan and Baisanghar. They are to forget all previous orders. As soon as the Uzbeks are in range our archers are to fire. Then, at my command, our entire force will charge.’
Sword raised, Babur turned his sweat-streaked horse to face the Uzbeks, who had, in fact, slowed and were now advancing at a canter. In their centre, between two tall purple standards, he made out a rider who could only be Shaibani Khan. He was too far away for Babur to see his features but there was something in his arrogant bearing, his stillness, that drew the eye, just as it had when he had led the sortie out of Samarkand six months previously. As Babur watched, Shaibani Khan slowly raised his left hand as if in salutation and the war-cry of his warriors rose with it — a sound to chill the blood.
Babur’s men yelled their own defiance, but they had barely filled their lungs when, with a wave of his sword, Shaibani Khan signalled the attack and the thunder of Uzbek hoofs drowned all other sounds as they accelerated into a gallop. Around him, Babur’s men struggled to hold their horses in check with one hand while with the other they held up their shields against the volleys of arrows falling from the skies. Babur’s archers were firing back and many of their missiles were finding their mark, but the dark, fast-approaching wave of Uzbeks did not falter even when riders slipped from the saddle to be crushed beneath the hoofs of those galloping behind.
The Uzbeks were close enough now. ‘For Samarkand!’ Babur yelled, and charged, followed by his men. Seconds later, the two lines crashed into each other. The shouts and screams of men and the whinnying of horses mingled with the clash of metal. It was hard — in fact, impossible in the press and confusion of battle — to tell what was happening, but it seemed to Babur as he cut and slashed that his men were gaining ground. Energy flowed through him as he lunged at a tall, mail-clad Uzbek who, instead of trying to fight him, backed his rearing horse away. The Uzbeks easily outnumbered his forces but all round, they seemed to be giving ground, wheeling off to left and right as Babur and his men pushed determinedly forward.
But he needed to see what was happening. Spurring his horse, Babur shot through a gap that had suddenly opened ahead of him. Yelling to those men who were still by his side to follow, he made for a low, scrub-covered hillock, which — so far as he could see — was unoccupied and would be a good vantage-point. There, he looked down on the battle. A pattern began to emerge from among the wheeling, fighting riders. Suddenly everything was obvious, and Babur swore in anguish. He knew what the Uzbeks were about. It was the ancient Mongol tactic of the
As they seemed to part before the onslaught of Babur’s men, Shaibani Khan’s troops were in fact forming into two units, one on the right, one on the left. In a moment they would sweep round to cut off Babur’s right and left wings, leaving the centre of his lines isolated and unprotected. Uzbeks would then detach from the two units to encircle and smash the centre. Afterwards they would re-join their comrades to share in the destruction of Babur’s left and right wings. The men under Wazir Khan would be funnelled towards the river and trapped on its steep, sandy banks while Baisanghar’s men would be completely surrounded unless they could break out quickly.
The harsh blasts of a horn from somewhere behind Babur rose above the sounds of battle. A formation of Uzbek warriors was galloping from behind a hill some quarter of a mile away where they must have been waiting, concealed. As they came nearer, their black hide shields with silver bosses told Babur who they were: Shaibani’s crack troops, warriors of his own clan, blood of his blood. They were heading for Baisanghar’s men, no doubt intending to block off their last chance of retreat.
Suddenly Babur realised that Baisanghar wouldn’t be able to see them because of a fold in the land. But he himself was closer to Baisanghar than the riders. Swiftly he picked one of his men whose horse still looked fresh. ‘Warn Baisanghar — tell him to get his men away and retreat towards Samarkand as best he can. Do you understand?’ The youth galloped away down the hillock. Babur waited until it seemed certain his messenger would beat the swooping line of Uzbeks, then, yelling to the others to keep close, he charged towards the riverbank where Wazir Khan’s men were fighting for their lives.
Circling round to where the lines of attacking Uzbeks looked thinnest, Babur managed to hack his way through, but of the twenty or so men who had ridden with him, only a dozen made it. The situation seemed hopeless. Wazir Khan’s men were indeed being pushed right back to the river by Uzbeks, some continuously firing arrows from the saddle while others, wielding curved swords, plunged into the disorganised and heaving mass of men and horses struggling to stay upright as the sandy banks gave way under them. Babur couldn’t pick out Wazir Khan.
Suddenly, Babur felt his horse shudder beneath him. With a scream of pain, the beautiful chestnut, hit almost simultaneously in its neck and throat by two arrows and already twitching in its death throes as scarlet blood pumped from a severed artery, went crashing to the ground. Babur jumped clear, only just avoiding being pinned to the earth by the thrashing animal. As he scrambled unsteadily to his feet, he still had his sword, Alamgir, in his hand but had lost his dagger and shield. Disoriented and dodging flailing hoofs and slashing blades, he looked around for another horse.
‘Majesty.’ It was Baburi, his face blood-encrusted, eyes desperate. Leaning forward in the saddle, he pulled Babur up behind him on his grey horse.
‘ To the river!’ Babur shouted. Their only hope was to get away with as many men as possible and leave the fight for another day. Waving his sword above his head, he looked round for his other commanders, yelling to them to get their men over the river. He still couldn’t see Wazir Khan.
The river was in full spate with the meltwater from the mountain snows. It was freezing as they plunged in and the currents were strong. Baburi’s horse struggled beneath their double weight as it tried to swim. It would never make it with two of them. Thrusting Alamgir into its scabbard, Babur slid off, avoiding Baburi’s attempt to keep him aboard. But as he struck out for the opposite bank, no more than twenty yards away, the powerful current grabbed him and carried him downstream.
‘Majesty. .’ Babur recognised Wazir Khan’s voice, but with cold water flowing about his ears and threatening to suck him under, he was in no position to look round. Then he felt something thin and hard knock against him in the water. Instinctively he grabbed it. It felt like the shaft of a spear. As the current whirled him against an outcrop of sharp rocks on the far side of the river, he jammed the end of the shaft into a narrow crevice. It bowed but held. Kicking hard against the current, Babur hauled himself along it to reach the rocks and with scratched and bloodied hands heaved himself, gasping, out of the water.
Arrows were falling all around him. Across the river, Uzbek archers lined the banks, jeering at their retreating opponents, some even finding time between shots to gesture obscenely. As he dodged behind a rock for cover, Babur saw Wazir Khan. He was still in the water. His black horse had been hit in the flanks and rump by several arrows and its eyes were rolling in terror and pain. Wazir Khan was urging it on but was still only halfway across. Had he tossed Babur the spear that had saved him? Forgetting his own danger, Babur rose from behind his rock and yelled Wazir Khan’s name. The old soldier looked up.
Then Babur saw an archer on the far bank take deliberate aim and draw back his bow-string. The black- feathered arrow swooped through the air like a hawk on its prey. For some reason, Wazir Khan turned and, as he did so, the arrow embedded itself in his exposed throat with such force that the tip came through the back of his neck. Slowly, he slid sideways from his horse into the roaring, swift-flowing waters. Babur’s desperate, despairing shouts pursued him as the blood-flecked river bore his body away.
