east of here. He has taken all his army, two thousand soldiers, with him.’
‘You’re sure of this — it isn’t a trap?’
‘We saw him ride out with his troops, accompanied by many camp-followers and citizens, and tracked him all the way.’
‘Tell me about the fortress.’ Babur leaned forward in his saddle, green eyes glinting above his face- cloth.
‘It’s a large rectangular mud-brick structure, two storeys high, on the brink of a river gorge. . Let me show you.’
The scout dismounted, cleared a patch of earth and, with the tip of his dagger, marked out a square tower with a river running through the gorge beneath its north wall. ‘See, Majesty. Rising scrubland surrounds it on three sides. This single gateway in the southern wall is the only way in — or out. .’
Baburi and Babur exchanged a glance. It couldn’t be better. The sultan thought himself in a stronghold. In fact, he was in a trap.
Four days later, Babur drew on his leather gauntlets in his scarlet command tent in his camp on one of the few stretches of flat land not far from the fortress. As he had expected, the sultan had ignored his invitation the previous evening to surrender and find mercy. Now he would face the consequences. Under cover of the night men and oxen had dragged the four guns into position four hundred yards from the gateway to the fortress. As quietly as they could, Ali-Quli’s men had dug mounds of earth on which to rest the guns, then concealed them with brushwood until the moment for action came.
And that moment was fast approaching. Each of Babur’s commanders had had his orders. The main force was to advance openly on the fortress’s southern side and immediately launch a frontal assault. Meanwhile, the matchlock men would follow them, ready to pick off defenders on the battlements. Finally, when he judged the time was right, Babur would reveal his cannon.
Under a steely grey sky, Babur gave the signal for the attack to begin. From a new vantage-point on the edge of a copse three hundred yards below the western corner of the fortress, where he and Baburi sat side by side on their horses, he watched his mounted archers charge up the stony slope to the fortress, loosing arrows as they rode. Dismounting, they began to hoist the broad wooden ladders they had dragged with them up against the fortress walls, to the left of the gateway. While they worked, Ali-Quli and his matchlock men fired at any defender rash enough to expose himself on the battlements above.
Two Bajauris fell immediately. Even from where he was, Babur sensed the defenders’ consternation and dismay. More fell. As the Bajauris realised that the red-hot balls could penetrate even shields and chain-mail, they began vanishing from the battlements.
Babur’s men were already swarming up the rough ladders two abreast. Keeping themselves pressed as close to the walls and ladders as possible, they held their round shields high to protect themselves against any missiles from above. Ali-Quli had already signalled the matchlock men to hold fire for fear of hitting their own side. Baba Yasaval, a courageous warrior from near Herat, was the first to reach the battlements and, fighting his way to the gatehouse, at once got to work with his men, trying to winch up the black metal grille blocking the main gateway. But now that the muskets had fallen silent, the defenders had regained their courage. Babur could see them running back on to the battlements, striking at Baba Yasaval’s outnumbered men with spiked maces and battleaxes, forcing them to fall back from the gatehouse.
Babur exchanged a brief glance with Baburi who, understanding exactly what was in his mind, rode swiftly to the cannon and their teams, concealed further down the slope. Babur watched as the gunners dragged the brushwood from around the weapons and adjusted the angle of elevation of each barrel.
Next, they rammed in the bags of gunpowder and the stone shot, inserted their spiked awls into each touch- hole and quickly sprinkled a little more gunpowder around. Finally, four more men advanced to light the charges — Babur could just see the glowing tips of the lengths of oil-soaked cord. Baburi looked across at him and, seeing him circle his sword above his head, gave the order to fire. All of a sudden, above the ordinary noise of battle, booming, cracking sounds never heard before in Bajaur tore the air.
The first cannon ball smashed into the lower storey of the agreed target, the fortress’s twenty-foot-high south-eastern wall to the right of the gateway. It struck about ten feet above the ground, spraying chunks of brick and dust in all directions. The second ball hit just below as did the third and fourth. When the dust and smoke cleared, a small part of the wall had collapsed and there was a large fissure in a neighbouring section. A detachment of Babur’s men, held in reserve till now, were already scrambling over the piles of rubble into the fortress.
Stunned defenders were fleeing, some letting themselves down from the battlements on ropes, slipping and falling in their haste to get away before the unknown weapon that had destroyed part of the walls roared again.
While Babur’s archers provided covering fire, the matchlock men moved closer, set up their forks and fired at the fugitives. Babur saw two Bajauris tumble over, one in complete silence with a musketball hole in his forehead, the other — a yellow-turbaned giant — screaming and clutching at his chest with twitching fingers that dripped blood. But so many were running, stumbling and falling down the eastward slope beneath the fortress and away from Babur’s men that it was impossible for the matchlock men to deal with them all.
‘Ride them down!’ Babur ordered a troop of his guard. Then, sword in hand, he galloped up the incline towards the main gate where his men had now succeeded in retaking the gatehouse and raising the grille. Baburi joined him just as he reached it and they rode in together.
‘Majesty.’ Baba Yasaval, his face shiny with sweat from his efforts and blood running from a jagged cut above his left ear, greeted Babur as he emerged into the courtyard. ‘The sultan is dead — he threw himself from the battlements into the gorge. We have taken many prisoners. What are your orders?’
‘Timur opened the locks of terror and overturned the heights of mountains. .’ Those words — cruel, perhaps, but very clear — resonated in Babur’s head. ‘Execute the royal council. They had the opportunity to submit but rejected it. Round up the rest — women and children too — to be sent to Kabul to work as slaves for our people.’
‘Well? What do you think? How did we do?’ Baburi asked, as they inspected the conquered fortress and the damage inflicted by the cannon.
Babur struggled to put his feelings into words. Because of his new weapons the fortress had fallen in hours, not days, weeks or months. The possibilities seemed limitless. He gripped Baburi’s shoulder. ‘Today we fought in a way my ancestors never knew, that would have amazed them. .’
‘So why don’t you look more cheerful?’
‘Too often I’ve let myself be seduced by grand prospects that did not materialise. Haven’t you often said so yourself? I don’t want to rush into an attack against Hindustan until I’m sure we’re ready.’
‘But today was a beginning, wasn’t it?’
The weeks that followed provided further chances for Babur to test both weapons and tactics. Leaving a conquered and subdued Bajaur, he took his men south-eastwards into the wild, mountainous country bordering Hindustan. Again, none of his opponents had any response to the crash of his cannon or the crack of his muskets.
Indeed, on learning of Babur’s approach nervous chieftains fell over themselves to send gifts of sheep, grain, horses, even women, accompanied by grovelling messages. Their eagerness to placate him and preserve from destruction their villages and mud fortresses perched on hilltops provoked a wry amusement in Babur. Some even presented themselves before him with grass in their mouths — the gesture of submission Babur had seen among other wild tribes in his youth.
But his interest in subduing petty chiefs was waning. At night, when he tried to sleep, different images filled his mind. A conqueror — ‘eyes like candles without the brilliance’ — surveyed the great river, the Indus, that lay between him and his objective. Timur had had no difficulty is overcoming men. Neither had he let any physical barrier stand in his way — no mountain or river had stopped him. Babur must be the same. Fifteen years ago, in blistering summer heat, he and Baburi had gazed on the Indus. Waking with a start he felt a fierce desire to do so again that he could not later explain — not to Baburi or even to himself. . But it persisted and strengthened.
Putting aside thoughts of further campaigning, Babur turned his column eastward until, on a chill March
