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 main army — a number which considerably exceeded Humayun’s forces even though they had now grown to over a hundred thousand.
Humayun had quickly realised that to be certain of victory he needed to erode his enemies’ numerical advantage before taking them on in the open field. Therefore, a fortnight previously he had despatched a raiding force under Bairam Khan to ride hard and light to harass his enemies’ outposts and to disrupt their communications with Delhi. Now he could see Bairam Khan’s troops returning across the dry plains. Messengers had already reported that they had had some successes, but he needed to hear from Bairam Khan’s lips their extent and what more he and his men had learned about their enemies’ strength and future plans.
Too eager for news to wait for Bairam Khan to come to him, Humayun called his bodyguard to him and, kicking his black horse into a gallop, set off down the hill towards Bairam Khan’s column. An hour later, beneath the limited shade provided by a solitary tree, he and Bairam Khan were sitting on a red and blue carpet spread with cushions.
‘Our successes in our raids were hard won, Majesty. Unlike our other opponents, Sekunder Shah’s men are disciplined. Even when surprised and outnumbered they did not panic or flee but closed ranks and battled hard, sometimes inflicting heavy casualties on us before we finally prevailed.’
‘As we feared, they make powerful opponents. What did you learn of Sekunder Shah’s movements?’
‘He is concentrating his main forces in the vicinity of a town called Sirhind on the south bank of one of the branches of the Sutlej river before making his next move. According to a despatch some of our men found on one of a party of Sekunder Shah’s messengers they captured three days ago, he has called for further reinforcements from Delhi and is expecting a large detachment of them to arrive within the next ten days bringing with them extra money to pay his other troops as well as more equipment.’
‘You are sure the message was genuine?’
‘It has Sekunder Shah’s seal on it, look. . ’
Bairam Khan unfastened the worn brown leather satchel he had looped across his chest, took out a large folded sheet of paper with a red wax seal on it and held it out to Humayun.
‘It certainly looks the real thing, but could it have been planted as some kind of ruse?’
‘I don’t think so, Majesty. The group of our men who captured the messengers were a scouting party operating well away — perhaps forty miles further east from my main force. They said that the messengers were galloping hard when they came upon them rather than loitering as they might have been if looking to be taken. When I spoke to them, Sekunder Shah’s men gave a good impression of being surprised and humbled to be captured. If they were acting, they were playing their parts to perfection.’
‘In that case, let us strain every sinew to intercept the reinforcements and seize the money and weapons. Send scouts out immediately to cover all possible approach routes.’
‘Majesty, their pickets have warned them of our presence,’ a slightly breathless Ahmed Khan told Humayun. ‘They have halted and drawn themselves into a defensive position about two miles away over the crest of that ridge, in and around a small village whose inhabitants fled at their approach. They are positioning their men behind the village’s mud walls and are overturning their wagons to form extra barricades.’
‘How many of them are there?’
‘About five thousand, mostly horsemen including some with muskets, protecting a large baggage train. They’ve also got quite a few small cannon with them.’
‘Now we’ve lost any chance of surprising them, our best hope is to attack before they can complete their preparations. Have Bairam Khan ready our men.’
Ninety minutes later, Humayun stood on the top of the ridge above the village and watched as the first wave of his men led by Bairam Khan himself charged the barricades behind which Sekunder Shah’s men were drawn up. There was a loud crash as Sekunder Shah’s cannon fired. Several of Bairam Khan’s men fell. A crackle of musketry followed which emptied more saddles. More fell from a second wave of cannon fire before they could reach the barricades, but still Bairam Khan’s men rode on.
‘Look, Father, isn’t that Mustapha Ergun at the head of the line over there?’ shouted Akbar.
Humayun followed his son’s pointing hand and saw through the white smoke drifting across the village his new recruit leaping one of the mud walls on his bay horse, followed closely by some of his men. Elsewhere, Humayun could see that a number of his other cavalry had come under such heavy fire and taken so many casualties that they were retreating, leaving bodies of men and horses strewn in front of the makeshift fortifications thrown up by Sekunder Shah’s men.
Then Humayun saw Bairam Khan gesturing to a detachment of his men previously held in reserve. They galloped to the area of the barricades where Mustapha Ergun and his troops had made a breach and swiftly followed them into the enemy camp. Once inside, they began attacking their opponents’ positions from the rear. For several minutes the horsemen, locked in combat, swayed back and forth, but slowly Humayun’s men were beginning to seize the upper hand as more and more reinforcements poured over the barricades despite suffering continuing casualties from Sekunder Shah’s resolute musketeers. Inch by inch the defenders were being herded into a small portion of their original position. Suddenly a group of Sekunder Shah’s horsemen broke out from the mass of their closely packed comrades and fought their way to a gap in the barricades before beginning to gallop determinedly in the direction in which Sekunder Shah’s main army lay.
‘We must stop them,’ shouted Humayun. ‘Follow me!’
Head bent low over his horse’s neck and with Akbar at his side, Humayun galloped after the riders. Led by a thick-set officer wearing a steel breastplate, they were maintaining cohesion and formation, seemingly bent on alerting Sekunder Shah as soon as possible to the fate of their comrades rather than on simply preserving their lives.
Slowly Humayun and his men gained on the group.When they were within arrow shot, Humayun grabbed his bow and quiver from his back. Standing in his stirrups with his reins clenched in his teeth he fired at the officer. He missed by inches, his arrow embedding itself in the man’s saddle. However, before he could fit another arrow to his string, the officer slid from his horse, an arrow in his neck. His foot caught in his stirrup and he was dragged for a while — head bumping along the stony ground — behind his frightened, galloping mount before the stirrup broke. Then he rolled over twice and lay still. Humayun realised it was Akbar who had fired the fatal arrow. Others of Sekunder Shah’s men had also fallen from their horses.
‘Well done!’ Humayun shouted to his son, ‘but stay back now.’
Humayun kicked his horse into a gallop once more and headed after the remaining dozen or so riders. Soon he was up with the hindmost of them, who was desperately urging his sweat-soaked, blowing pony onwards. Seeing Humayun he half raised his round shield but he was too late. Humayun’s sharp sword caught him across the back of his neck beneath his helmet. His blood gushed crimson and he crashed to the hard ground.