All around other of Humayun’s soldiers were jumping from the saddle the better to collapse the tents and to come to close quarters with their enemy. Soon Humayun could make out men rolling in the mud, fighting and stabbing at each other. He recognised one of his warriors, a curly-bearded, muscular Badakhshani who was sitting, smiling broadly, on an opponent’s shoulders pulling his head back by the hair. As Humayun watched, he thrust the man’s head forward again down into a quagmire of mud and water. He held it there for a couple of minutes before throwing the lifeless body aside.
Another of his men had run to a line of tethered cavalry horses and was slashing at their leg ropes. As he cut their tethers, he whacked each horse on the rump to send it galloping away into the gloom. Good, thought Humayun, it could only add to the panic and confusion among his awakening enemies. Yet another of his soldiers had grabbed a lance from a rack outside one collapsed tent and was stabbing at two figures struggling beneath its folds. Soon the squirming bodies were still and dark stains were spreading into the tent’s material.
‘Come,’ Humayun shouted to Mustapha Ergun, ‘it’s getting lighter. Now we can see more, let us try to find Sekunder Shah’s personal quarters. You too, Bairam Khan, follow me with your men.’
Soon, by the swiftly rising light, Humayun distinguished on a low rise about half a mile away a collection of large tents erected in a hollow rectangle with a big flag hanging wet and limp from a pole outside a single vast tent — surely Sekunder Shah’s own — at its centre. As Humayun rode closer, he saw a number of men milling around the tents. Some already had their breastplates and helmets on, others were throwing saddles on their horses, clambering unprotected into them and forming up ready to defend themselves.
Moments later, Humayun heard a crackle of musket fire from beneath the awning of one of the tents — at least some of Sekunder Shah’s men had kept their powder dry. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw one of Mustapha Ergun’s Turks slide silently from his saddle with a bullet wound in his temple. His frightened horse swerved into the path of Humayun’s own mount. Humayun hastily pulled on the reins of his horse but the frightened animal reared up. It took all Humayun’s skill to retain his seat as his mount, dropping back on to its four legs, skittered sideways, further disrupting the progress of his other cavalry. They in turn, seeing Humayun’s difficulty, almost instinctively began to rein in, presenting an attractive target to Sekunder Shah’s men. A flight of arrows rose from another of the tents, which were now becoming veiled in white smoke from the muskets. Several more of Humayun’s men were hit. One dropped his sword and, falling headlong into the mud, lay still. Others remained in the saddle but slowly dropped back from their comrades to tend their wounds.
Almost simultaneously, from Humayun’s flank came two louder explosions. Turning his head towards the sound, Humayun realised that Sekunder Shah’s artillerymen had got two of his larger cannon into action from where they had been dug in, protected from the wet by a rough, timber-planked roof. Each cannon ball found a mark. One hit a black horse in the belly, causing it to collapse. It tried to stagger to its feet, its intestines protruding from the gaping wound, before subsiding back into the mud neighing piteously. The second cannon ball carried away the front leg of another horse which buckled and fell, pitching its rider — another of Mustapha Ergun’s men — over its head.
It had all happened very quickly and as Humayun regained full control of his dancing horse a sudden thought chilled him. He might be being drawn into a carefully prepared trap. Sekunder Shah’s men might even now be circling round to block the route behind them. Surely the prize of the throne of Hindustan would not be ripped from his grasp once more? No, it could not be. . He must not falter in his moment of destiny, not let doubt stand in the way of overcoming this momentary disorder.
‘Come on, regroup! We mustn’t lose impetus,’ he yelled. Waving Alamgir he turned directly towards the tents from which the musket men had fired and kicked his horse forward as fast as it would go in the glossy deep mud. He was immediately followed by his bodyguard. Another few musket shots rang out and another rider fell but then Humayun was among the enemy musketeers who were now trying to flee, throwing aside their long weapons and supporting tripods. Humayun cut one down with a slash from Alamgir but then he and his men were in turn charged by some of the riders he had seen mounting up previously. A stout officer on a brown horse with a diamond blaze on its face made directly for Humayun, his lance held in his left hand aimed at Humayun’s chest.
Humayun twisted his horse’s head and the lance struck a glancing blow against his breastplate, knocking him slightly off balance so that his own sword slash also missed. Both men wheeled their horses round tightly and the officer drew his sword and came at Humayun again. Humayun ducked under his arcing sword cut, hearing a whooshing sound as it parted the air above his head.Then he lunged with Alamgir at his opponent’s midriff, which was unprotected by chain mail. The sharp sword cut deep into soft, fatty flesh and, bleeding profusely, the officer collapsed over the neck of the brown horse, which bore him away into the melee.
Humayun next attacked an imposing red-turbaned figure he saw directing the fighting a little way off. As he rode closer, he saw the man pull a double-headed battleaxe from its sheath, which was attached to his saddle. He drew back his arm and sent the battleaxe spinning through the air towards Humayun. Humayun got his mail-clad arm up to protect his head but the sharp axe blade caught his arm a glancing blow. It was heavy enough to damage Humayun’s chain mail and to reopen the scar tissue of the wound he had suffered all those years ago at the battle of Chausa. Bright scarlet-orange blood started to run down his arm and into the gauntlet on his hand. Humayun ignored it and, still gripping Alamgir tightly, slashed at the man as he rode past him so close that their legs bumped together. Humayun’s stroke caught the officer full on his throat, just above his Adam’s apple, severing his neck and sending pulses of blood into the air from his torso for the few moments it remained erect before collapsing from the saddle.
Breathing hard, Humayun reined in his horse and looked around. He and his men had won the battle around the command tents. To his left he could see Mustapha Ergun and some of his white-turbaned warriors pursuing a fleeing band of Sekunder Shah’s cavalry while to his right Bairam Khan’s men, among whom Humayun could identify Akbar’s milk-brother Adham Khan, had encircled another large group who, as Humayun watched, flung down their arms.
Bairam Khan rode up to Humayun. ‘Majesty, my junior commanders report that twenty of our divisions have entered Sekunder Shah’s camp and more and more are doing so by the minute. We have killed many of our opponents before they could arm and captured many others, while yet more have fled in small groups in panic. We have already secured more than three-quarters of the camp. However, our enemies are still resisting strongly and in numbers in the southwest corner. Some of my men claim they saw an important officer, perhaps Sekunder Shah himself, riding in that direction with a bodyguard from the command tents when we first made our attack on them.’
‘Let’s get ourselves over there to organise the assault and attempt to capture Sekunder Shah if that is where he is. But first, bind this wound of mine with my neck cloth,’ said Humayun, pulling off his gauntlet and stretching out his bloody arm to Bairam Khan. Within a few minutes, Bairam Khan had bound Humayun’s forearm tightly and the wound, which was not deep, had more or less stopped bleeding.