‘What’s wrong?’ I asked.
‘Follow me,’ he yelled. We could barely make ourselves heard.
It was a short ride.
The rising river had cut a new channel.
We were not on the far shore.
We were on a new island, and on the far bank, an enemy signal fire burned despite the torrential rain.
Sometimes, he was a god.
He turned to me and his face, streaming with water, was almost alight with his determination.
‘It can’t be very old,’ he shouted. ‘I’m going to try it. It can’t be deep.’
Before I could say anything, he made Bucephalus – perhaps, by then, the oldest horse in the army – jump into the water.
It was deep. But the horse swam well, and the water had almost no current to it – the channel was fresh, and had not yet cut deep. I saw no point in watching further, and urged my mount into the water – my Nisean, one of the army’s tallest horses. His feet touched the mud underneath – my feet got wet, but they were wet already. We were across in a hundred heartbeats, and we scrambled up the new far bank side by side, rode to the enemy watch fire, scattered it and killed the sentries.
My Paeonians were beginning to ford the river behind me. The Prodromoi were hard on their heels, and behind them came the Hetaeroi and their Persian equivalents.
There was an element of humour, sitting there with the king, watching them come. We were the first two across, and had the enemy been alert, Alexander’s conquest of the world could have ended in ignominious capture on the banks of the Hydaspes river.
But the rain was letting off, and the show of heaven’s wrath. Already, it was possible to hear the creak of oars. Already, men were singing the paean from the boats. The Paeonians and Prodromoi crossed and I sent them off into the darkness. The rest of the Agrianians crossed, and I followed them into the last of the rain. Behind us, the barges of the hypaspitoi and the pezhetaeroi were nudging the shore.
We were across. We had fourteen thousand men, to fight a hundred thousand men and two hundred elephants.
As the rain settled, Alexander took on a glow; never had I seen him so sure of himself. Suddenly he was everywhere – with Seleucus, getting the hypaspitoi moving off the riverbank, and forward with me, asking me for a report. My pathfinder Agrianians, who had been across for days, came in as soon as I lit the patterned signal fires in the locations I had briefed them on – men came from as far as four parasanges, men who had laid the trees at the edge of Porus’s camp, reporting on his troop movements. Now they told us that Porus’s son, Porus the younger, with two hundred chariots and two thousand cavalry, was coming at us out of the rain.
We manoeuvred in silence in the growing grey light. There was almost no cover, but we moved the Paeonians as far forward on the left as could be managed, and Hephaestion took the royal Hetaeroi forward on the far right, with Demetrius’s men forming the centre well back. There weren’t enough infantry across yet to make a difference.
The king himself insisted on leading the centre, and then we could see the Indians coming. They’d formed well – they probably formed right outside their camp, fearful of our speed, which shows how competent they really were. Young Porus was in a chariot, and he drove it across the front of his force, haranguing them. Then he charged our centre, and we charged his flanks. He was young and foolish, and he died. We killed or captured his entire force in about as long as it takes to tell the story, because they hadn’t expected us to outflank the ends of their line. Thorough, but not good enough. They had not faced Spitamenes, or Memnon.
We had.
When I rode up to the king, he was weeping, standing beside Bucephalus, who was putting his muzzle into the king’s hand. The old horse had four huge arrows, almost the size of javelins, in his body, and another in his neck. Even as I watched, he subsided to his knees with a sigh.
A white charger was brought up, and the king paused and kissed Bucephalus on the head. ‘Good horse,’ he said.
Better than Cleitus got.
Then he remounted, and we were off, southward.
We pursued the broken Indians as hard as we could, until we had three of the fords that the Indians had been holding for three weeks in our hands. The water was high, but Meleager and two other taxeis got across, the men soaked, their pikes unaffected.
The phalanx was starting to form.
Ahead, Ariston was watching Porus, and sending a stream of messages to the king. Porus had begun to form his battle line to our front, and he’d left adequate forces to keep Craterus bottled up across the river.
Alexander rode forward to see for himself, and I followed him. The sun was just emerging from the clouds – the first sun we’d seen in days.
I thought of Issus.
Scouts led us to a stand of acacia, where the king sat on his new charger with Ariston, Perdiccas, Coenus, Hephaestion and me, and watched Porus form his army, a seemingly endless crenellation of bow and long-sword- armed infantry as the wall, interspersed with elephants as the teeth.
Alexander sniffed. ‘There goes another one,’ he said. He meant messengers, but none of us got that. Yet. Porus was sending quite a few, and Alexander was watching them, but we hadn’t noticed.
At the flanks, Porus’s cavalry shifted. They didn’t seem to form well – especially on their right, our left, they kept moving – forward, back – it drew the eye.
Alexander watched under his hand. ‘You have to assume that his son was his most trusted commander,’ he said. ‘And hence, that he commanded the right-flank cavalry.’
He looked around, and his eyes glittered.
‘Watch the cavalry on the right. They are under an inexperienced commander, and one that Porus does not really trust.’ He smiled, watching intently.
I’ll be honest. I didn’t see anything like that. I saw a well-formed army, waiting to repel an invader. And I saw us about to fight a truly unnecessary battle.
I looked at the king. ‘How do you know the king mistrusts him?’ I asked.
Alexander laughed aloud. ‘Look! Watch!’ He looked at the battlefield. ‘And another one.’
Seleucus solved the riddle. ‘Messengers!’ he said.
‘Well reasoned!’ the king said. ‘Since I arrived in this patch of woods – no great time – Porus has sent five messengers to his right flank. Now, why does the right flank keep shifting?’
We were all silent.
Alexander slapped Seleucus on the back. ‘Some day, you will be a great general, lad. Listen, friends.’ He laughed – the sheer joy of his face made him seem like one of the deathless gods.
‘Porus is planning to pull all his cavalry off his right and use them all on the left, under a commander he trusts,’ he said.
Lysimachus grunted. I made a similar sound. He was the greatest military genius I’ve ever known or heard of, but it was an absurd conclusion to draw from the evidence.
‘Coenus – take your hipparchy and Demetrios, and all of you ride wide round our left. If Porus’s left-flank cavalry stand fast – charge them. If they cross his rear, follow them, ignoring the line of archers and elephants, and charge the
Seleucus grinned. ‘Care to wager?’ he asked.
‘My career against yours?’ the king said, and Seleucus turned grey.
But Alexander laughed. ‘Your turn will come, young man.’
It was the first time he’d ever used that phrase in my hearing.
He turned to me. ‘Left of my line. Form your Hetaeroi, and put the Paeonians and Prodromoi behind you.’
I nodded. He was going to charge from the right in a cavalry column. As it turned out, we formed six squadrons wide and three deep – a formation not entirely unlike a wedge, except that it was more flexible.
As we came through the trees and formed, we were the only troops Porus could see. By the time the king’s squadron was forming, Porus was sending messengers to the flanks – right and left.
