Cambay, the Gujaratis will be alarmed enough and uncertain enough of our whereabouts to feel unable to concentrate their forces when they hear of the threat to Champnir. We ourselves must hasten to rejoin our main column attacking that fort. It is there we will win the decisive victory that will make Gujarat ours.’
Chapter 3
‘Jauhar, bring me some of that lime juice and water — what do the Hindus call it?
Humayun had joined the siege six weeks ago. As he had first discussed with his council, his officers had fortified their own position with barricades and cannon on both sides so that they could not only beat off any sorties by the besieged but also repulse the relieving force they had been so certain would arrive. It hadn’t yet and scouts still reported no sign of its approach. Bahadur Shah was said to be in the highlands on the southern border of his lands. Perhaps he trusted in the strength of the fortress and its garrison as sufficient to see off Humayun and his army.
If so, he’d been right so far, Humayun mused. He and his commanders had tried everything but without success. Their cannon had pounded the thick stone walls, but many of the artillerymen had been picked off from the fortress’s battlements as they struggled to man the guns. Even on the one occasion when the gunners had succeeded in breaching a small portion of the walls, the Gujaratis had shot down Humayun’s men with their muskets as they tried to scramble through and over the rubble. Those who had survived to struggle back had reported there was an inner wall from the protection of which the Gujaratis had been able to fire their bullets and arrows to repulse them. At other times, the Gujarati cannon, well protected by stone embrasures, had been able to break up frontal attacks even before the Moghuls could get close enough to the walls to place their scaling ladders.
Blackened and bloated bodies of dead Moghul warriors littered the ground before the fortress walls giving off the sickly-sweet smell of putrescence and attracting clouds of purply-black flies which had multiplied and now clustered throughout his camp. So many men had been killed in trying to rescue wounded comrades or to recover the bodies of the dead that Humayun had had to forbid such attempts except under cover of night and even then there had been more casualties.
Jauhar’s reappearance with his drink broke into Humayun’s thoughts. As he drank the cooling liquid he looked out once more and saw that dark clouds were piling the afternoon sky. They would get darker and even more numerous as the monsoon approached.The rains would provide the defenders with water and make Humayun’s attacks even more difficult. They might even bring disease to his camp.
‘Jauhar, when do the local people say the rains come hereabout?’
‘Mid-July, Majesty.’
Humayun stood, his mind made up. ‘We must complete our business here before then. Our frontal attacks are not working. We need to find an alternative and soon. I will go out with the leaders of our scouts tomorrow to see if we can identify any weaknesses in their defences the Gujaratis may have overlooked.’
Humayun was sweating profusely beneath his chain mail as he rode along the southern side of the rocky outcrop on whose eastern tip the seemingly impregnable fort of Champnir stood. Added to his physical discomfort was a feeling of acute frustration. He and his scouts had already spent five hot hours in a fruitless reconnaissance of the northern side and were already over halfway down the southern. Every time he or a scout had thought they had spotted a vulnerable point where his men might make an ascent it had ended in an overhang impassable to climbing soldiers. Once a scout had got three-quarters of the way up a cleft in the rock wall before he fell backwards, arms flailing, when a single musket shot cracked out, revealing that there was indeed a defensive post concealed in one of the folds of the cliff.
‘Jauhar, give me some water,’ Humayun said, wiping his sweating face with a cotton cloth. ‘Quickly boy,’ he snapped as Jauhar fumbled at his saddlebag.
‘Sorry, Majesty, the ties are entangled.’
‘As quick as you can then,’ Humayun said more softly, conscious that his anger was inspired not by the boy’s ineptitude but his own frustration at failing to locate an attack route. ‘We’ll dismount and rest for a little under the shade of those trees over there on that small hill.’
Wearily Humayun turned his horse towards the copse five hundred yards away. But as he rode up the gentle slope and dismounted, he realised that the higher elevation and a new direction of view gave a completely different perspective. He was able to see that above the trees was a deep cleft in the rock which seemed to run all the way to the top. Perhaps a waterfall ran down it in the monsoon but at the moment it looked dry. Thirst and frustration forgotten, Humayun called his chief scout Ahmed Khan to him.
‘Do you see that fissure over there? What d’you think? Could it be passable?’
‘I’m not sure, Majesty, but it looks promising. I will go and investigate.’
‘Before you go make sure that the rest of our men are under cover of the trees. We don’t want them spotted. . and good luck.’
‘Thank you, Majesty.’ Ahmed Khan took a pair of leather boots from his saddlebag. Their thick soles had extra leather bands sewn across them for better grip. Pulling them on, he set off the half-mile or so to the cliff. After five or ten minutes he was lost to view in the scrubby bush and straggling trees. Then Humayun made out a figure climbing the cliff. Sometimes it disappeared but reappearing seemed to make good progress.Then it went out of sight entirely for a while. When Humayun next saw the scout he was much lower down. Humayun paced to and fro, waiting for his return, fearing that the last few yards had proved impassable but hoping they had not. Half an hour later Ahmed Khan was back on the tree-covered hill. His hands were grazed in places and the knees of his baggy pants were torn. By the uneven way he was walking his left boot seemed to have lost some of its leather banding but he was smiling broadly.
‘There appear to be no defenders. It’s not too difficult to get within forty feet of the top but those last few feet are very awkward with very few footholds. For a mountain man like me it should be possible to get up one of the narrow clefts, putting feet against one side and back against the other. But it would be impossible for many, particularly when encumbered by weapons. However’ — and here he smiled again — ‘the rock is fissured and soft enough for those going first to drive metal spikes into the cliff to make a kind of ladder for the less skilled to climb.’
‘I give thanks to God and to you for your bravery and skill. We will return tomorrow night with five hundred picked men. While our main forces make a frontal attack to occupy the defenders, we’ll make the climb and get into the fortress from the rear.’
Under the pale light of the moon, Humayun with Ahmed Khan at his side climbed up through the scrubby trees towards the fissure. The loose, smooth stones and pebbles beneath their feet confirmed that this was the dry bed of a stream and that a waterfall from above did indeed feed it during the rains.
Impatient as always to be in the thick of the battle, Humayun had disregarded the advice of Baba Yasaval that he should stay at the centre where he could better direct the action, and decided to accompany Ahmed Khan and ten of the best climbers among his bodyguard on the mission to drive the spikes into the rock. He knew he was as agile as any of them and that by going among the first party he would encourage the remainder of his five hundred men. The knowledge that their emperor had already made the climb himself meant that in honour they could not fail to follow.
All was going well. They had tethered their horses a considerable way off and taken advantage of every scrap of cover and every occasion the scudding clouds had concealed the moon to get to this point undetected.Just in front, through the overhanging branches, Humayun saw the head of the streambed and the dark cliff rising above it.
