young nephew.’
Three hours after the battle, some of the troops Humayun had sent in pursuit of his defeated enemy returned. Humayun saw that one of them was leading a horse with a body slung across its back, the arms and legs tied together beneath the animal’s belly. The rider leading the group dismounted and bowed low before Humayun. ‘It’s Adil Shah, Majesty. Members of his bodyguard whom we overtook only two or three miles from here surrendered the body to us. They told us that he had died a short time before from a chest wound inflicted by a musket ball at the beginning of the battle.’
Humayun walked over to the corpse and, pulling the head back, looked into his opponent’s face. Beneath the caked blood and dirt, Adil Shah looked ordinary. Humayun could see no outward trace of the wicked depth of his ambition which had led him to slaughter his sister’s son. Letting Adil Shah’s head drop, he suppressed the temptation welling within him to show his contempt for his enemy by leaving his corpse unburied for the birds and pariah dogs to feed on. Instead, he turned away with a curt instruction, ‘Inter him in an unmarked grave.’
That night, in the quiet of his tent, Humayun offered a silent prayer of thanks. He had eliminated one of the three other major contenders for the throne of Hindustan. But he knew he must not relax. He must retain the initiative and the impetus of his victories, pushing himself and his army to the utmost. Otherwise, his chance to recover his throne and to transform himself from failure to victor might be lost and might never arise again.
The next morning Ahmed Khan’s scouts brought news of a further opportunity. Travellers coming up the road from the south had told them that a small army led by two of Tartar Khan’s generals was about five days’ ride away, heading north in their direction. Its apparent aim was to confront Adil Shah of whose defeat they were as yet ignorant. Realising that he had a great chance to inflict a serious blow on the second of the contenders for the throne of Hindustan and in all probability remove him too from contention, Humayun immediately ordered his men to move south to attack Tartar Khan’s army.
A week later, Humayun surveyed another battlefield. Riding hard, his troops had come up with their enemy earlier that day and had found that their opponents were travelling in two distinct divisions separated by at least a mile. Neither group numbered more than four thousand men. Humayun had straightaway ordered an attack on the leading division, which had quickly broken under the impact and scattered across the plain. Rather than riding to the aid of their stricken comrades, the second division had retreated and occupied a defensive position on a nearby small hill, which Humayun’s troops had swiftly encircled.
At this moment, Humayun could see a group of officers conferring on the hilltop. Turning to Ahmed Khan at his side, he asked, ‘Do we know who the general of that division is?’
‘Majesty, during the recent battle the commander of a squadron of cavalry surrendered almost immediately and told us that he and his men wished to serve you. We put his men under guard and confined him to one of our tents where he volunteered much information about the make-up of our enemy’s army and its morale. He is sure to know.’
‘Bring him to me.’
A few minutes later, two of Ahmed Khan’s men appeared leading a tall man of about thirty with a neatly trimmed black beard. To forestall any possibility of his attacking Humayun they had shackled his ankles so closely that he could only shuffle forwards. When he was within a few yards of Humayun he threw himself on the ground.
After a moment Humayun spoke. ‘Help him up.’ Then he asked, ‘Who are you?’
‘Mustapha Ergun, a Turkish officer in the service of Tartar Khan.’
‘I understand you wish to transfer your allegiance to me.’
‘My hundred men also.’
‘Why?’
‘We joined Tartar Khan in search of booty and of position if he became
‘I remember well the esteem in which my father held his Turkish gunners. I too have been served well by officers from other nations. Bairam Khan here joined me from the army of the Shah of Persia. But how can I be sure of your sincerity?’
‘We are prepared to swear our loyalty to you on the Holy Book — or let us lead the attack in your next battle to prove ourselves.’
‘I will consider both offers, but I pose you this initial test. Go to the other division of your army who sit surrounded on that hill. Persuade them to surrender. I extend to them the following terms — either to depart unmolested retaining their personal weapons but leaving behind their heavy equipment or — like you — to volunteer to join my forces. If they do not surrender, I may take up your offer to lead the next attack, which will be on them. Do you accept my proposition?’
‘Yes, Majesty.’
‘Strike off his shackles.’
A quarter of an hour later, Mustapha Ergun rode out from Humayun’s camp accompanied by ten of his men. When he reached the hill on which his comrades were drawn up, they opened a gap in their lines to receive him. Humayun could see him and his men ride to the top of the barren hill to talk to the officers congregated there. Soon the knot of men broke up and individual officers seemed to be consulting their men.There were occasional outbursts of cheering before the gap in the front line reopened and Mustapha Ergun with his ten soldiers behind him re- emerged and rode back down to Humayun’s position.
Two of Humayun’s bodyguards placed themselves on either side of him as, smiling, he approached Humayun, who had Bairam Khan and Akbar at his side. ‘What success have you had?’
‘No more blood will be spilled, Majesty. The division on the hill is commanded by a Gujarati prince named Selim and two-thirds of his troops are Gujaratis enlisted by Tartar Khan when he first decided to pursue the imperial throne. They’re tired of this campaign and wish to return home and are prepared to accept your conditions for doing so.’
‘Good. And the other third?’
‘A mixed bunch from many places. Some are mere boys who joined our ranks as we passed through their villages from a desire for adventure, most of whom now want nothing more than to preserve their lives. Others are hardened soldiers of fortune like ourselves, including one hundred musketeers from my own country under the command of an old comrade of mine, Kemil Attak, and about the same number of Persians, recruited to man the few small cannon we have with us. Both these two groups wish to join you with their weapons, as we do ourselves.’
‘You have done well. I accept your offer of service and that of your men and I will accept those of the other volunteers, provided like you their officers convince me of their sincerity.’ Then, turning to Bairam Khan, he said, ‘Each victory brings us nearer to our goal. But we cannot falter or all we have achieved so far will be lost. This evening we will feast to celebrate our victory and to welcome our new comrades-in-arms but tomorrow we will march to vanquish the last of the pretenders to my throne, Sekunder Shah. He is the best leader and his army is the largest of the three. His governor occupies Delhi and he himself sits with his army across the road to the capital. Our greatest battle is to come.’
Later that night, as the sounds of merriment and raucous singing echoed around the camp, Humayun left the celebrations. For a moment he stopped and gazed at the stars sprinkling the black velvet of the night but then he walked slowly back to his tent. A waiting guard lifted the flap and Humayun entered and sat at a low table. Taking a pen he dipped it into the jade inkpot and by the light of a flickering oil lamp started to write a letter to Hamida to be handed to a post messenger in the morning to begin its long journey back to Kabul. He wrote that he and Akbar were safe, of his love for her and of his certainty that he would soon sit once more on the throne of Hindustan.
The air was hot and still and as Humayun looked across from his vantage point on a low sandstone hill he saw that dark clouds were piling up on the far horizon as they always did in the afternoon in early summer as the monsoon approached. It was nearly a month since his defeat of Tartar Khan’s generals. In that time he had turned east in pursuit of the forces of Sekunder Shah who, according to his scouts, had a quarter of a million men in his
