‘Around four thousand, Majesty. It’s good that we’d already started recruiting among the tribes around Kabul for the probing campaign towards the Indus you are contemplating.’
‘Will the recruits remain loyal? Those tribes are fractious and rent by feuds.’
‘We believe so, Majesty. As you know, we gave them a bounty on recruitment and promised more after each victory.’
‘Good. We will march in five days.’
Four days later — preparations had taken less time than Humayun had originally thought — he rode on his black horse down the stone ramp of the citadel of Kabul to the parade ground on the plain below where his army of four thousand men had assembled, pennants flying in the stiff chill breeze. As Humayun took his place in the centre of the column, he reflected that although they were many fewer than the troops he had once deployed in Hindustan, they should be more than enough to defeat Kamran. Nearly all his men were mounted and while he had decided, for speed of movement, not to take cannon with him, many of his soldiers had six-foot-long muskets tied to their saddles. Others had bows and quivers full of arrows across their backs.
Ahmed Khan’s spies had confirmed that Kamran was indeed on the move and that by now he should be no more than ten days away from Kabul, advancing up the long defile through the Safed mountain range. Because the campaign would be short — they might expect to clash in battle in less than a week — Humayun had ordered the provisions and equipment they carried to be kept to a minimum. Most of it — like the felt tents to keep out the late frosts, the copper cooking pots and the sacks of rice — was loaded in wicker panniers strapped on the backs of camels.The rest was carried by the lines of pack horses and mules waiting, roped together and restive, at the rear of the column.
Once arrived among his officers, Humayun waved to his trumpeters to sound their long brass trumpets and to his drummers to beat out their martial tattoo on the drums slung on either side of their horses. This was the signal for the column to move off, which it did with a jangling of harness and neighing of horses and the foul-breathed snorting of the haughty-looking camels.
Late in the afternoon of the third day, as the sun was dropping low over the jagged mountains lining the valley as it descended to the south, Humayun was discussing with his officers where best to make camp for the night when Ahmed Khan cantered up. A white-haired man with a weather-beaten face was riding by his side. Humayun saw he was guiding his long-haired mountain pony with only one hand and that the bottom of the right sleeve of his brown wool jacket flapped empty. The old man dismounted with surprising agility and bowed to Humayun.
‘Majesty,’ Ahmed Khan began, ‘this is Wazim Pathan.When one of our scouts entered his village he asked to be brought here. He claims he was one of three soldiers you rewarded in front of the whole army before the battle of Kanauj. He had lost his hand and lower arm in a skirmish with Sher Shah’s advancing troops and you discharged him to return home with a bag of coin. As proof he showed me this.’ Ahmed Khan produced a faded red velvet bag with the mark of the Moghul empire embroidered upon it.
‘I remember both the occasion and you, Wazim Pathan, well. The years have been kind to you and I am glad to see you.’
‘Majesty, I have told Ahmed Khan that I wish to repay some little portion of the debt of gratitude I owe you. Over the years, I have become the headman of my small village in a side valley off the main track only two miles from here. I was born and brought up in these mountains you see around you and I know all the paths. There is one which climbs up through the scree slopes behind my village and then winds between tumbled rocks to a position high above this main valley road along which your traitorous half-brother must pass. From those heights you could ambush him, shooting his men down and attacking him in the rear.’
Humayun had no doubt that Wazim Pathan was telling the truth. ‘We will halt tonight near your village and in the early morning explore the paths you suggest. Now we must hurry if we’re to make camp before darkness falls completely.’
Wazim Pathan had begged Humayun to use his small windowless flat-roofed mud house, with its central fireplace vented by a hole in the roof, as his temporary headquarters. To honour his old soldier, Humayun had agreed, although he had slept in his usual tent erected under Jauhar’s watchful eye within the low walls of Wazim Pathan’s compound. Just before first light, Ahmed Khan and some of his men had departed to check the practicality of Wazim Pathan’s proposed route for an army the size of theirs. Now, just after the sun had reached its zenith, Humayun could see them returning, their horses zigzagging their way down tracks through the grey scree-strewn slope of the nearest of the mountains.
‘Majesty,’ reported Ahmed Khan when, three-quarters of an hour later, Humayun and his military commanders sat around the fire in Wazim Pathan’s humble home, sometimes coughing as gusts of wind blew smoke back into the room through the hole in the roof, ‘it is indeed possible to get armed men along the paths Wazim Pathan has shown us, though not all the army could go that way. The track leads to a position overlooking the valley just where it narrows into a defile. It is ideally suited to ambushing your half-brother’s men.’
‘What do our scouts who are shadowing Kamran’s troops report about their progress?’
‘They should pass below the ambush position around midday the day after tomorrow.’
‘Then,’ said Humayun, putting an end to any further debate, ‘my mind is made up. We will take six hundred of our best men including most of our musketeers up into the ambush place. Zahid Beg, you will select who will come. Tell them to take not only their arms but also animals’ skins and blankets to keep them warm in the night we must spend up there as well as enough water and cold food for two days. We will light no fires either for warmth or for cooking in case they reveal our position. The rest of our men will remain here under your command, Bairam Khan, to barricade the main road to block the way of any of Kamran’s men who are left alive and try to flee north along the road towards Kabul.’
Next morning, beneath a clear blue sky and with Wazim Pathan on his tough pony and Ahmed Khan on his usual brown mare at his side, Humayun rode out from Wazim Pathan’s small village towards the nearby mountain and the track leading upward through its scree slopes. After an hour, he and the front of the column had reached the area of jumbled, tumbled boulders and began slowly and in single file picking their way upwards through them and across gullies in which snow had collected and frozen. At the end of another hour and a half, Wazim Pathan pointed to a ridge about half a mile ahead. ‘Majesty, over that ridge lies the main road that runs south from Kabul — the one that your brother will come up.’
Humayun and Ahmed Khan followed Wazim Pathan as, with his single hand, he guided his pony through more rocks and boulders towards the crest of the ridge. Once on the top, which still had a thick covering of frozen snow, Humayun could see that it afforded a great vantage point over the road and that the rocks lower down were ideal to conceal musketeers to fire upon any unsuspecting army advancing towards Kabul.
Humayun spoke. ‘The musketeers will have to eat and sleep in those rocks just in case Kamran and his men arrive earlier than we expect. Ahmed Khan, give orders for them to take up their positions immediately, carrying with them their bedding and provisions as well as their weapons. But what of the rest of us,Wazim Pathan? Is there any flat ground nearby where we could bivouac before exploring further along the ridge? We need to find a place from which to sally down to take Kamran’s men in the rear so we can drive them forward under our musketeers’ fire.’