‘Ahmed Khan, we must attack now if our assault is to succeed. Give the orders for the elephants to advance and for our cannon and archers to provide covering fire. I will take my place with the first wave of cavalry, ready to follow up the elephants’ attack.’
At Ahmed Khan’s signal, the elephants, encumbered by the extra weight they were carrying, began to advance, moving more slowly than usual but still they made progress over the dry, stony ground, bare except for the corpses of men and animals which lay between them and the bottom of the winding ramp. The defenders’ arrows seemed to have little effect, bouncing off the elephants’ steel armour or sticking harmlessly into the planking of the howdahs like quills on a porcupine. However, when the attackers came within musket shot, Akbar saw one elephant pause as if hit but then it moved forward again, stoically plodding after its companions leaving a trail of blood as it did so. Occasionally a soldier plunged from a howdah, clearly wounded, but with growing excitement Akbar realised the elephants were making better progress than in any previous attack. Soon the leading beasts would be at the foot of the ramp. Now was the time for him to ready his horsemen.
‘Follow me. Chittorgarh will be ours,’ he shouted as he led his riders forward at the trot, ready to charge after the elephants if they made it up the ramp to the gate. But then he saw some pots full of fire being thrown from the walls of Chittorgarh towards the elephants. All of them fell short, bursting harmlessly on the surrounding rocks. Suddenly orange-turbaned Rajputs began to emerge through a door set into the metal-studded main gate. The first man to appear put a taper to the large clay pot he was carrying and, as the pitch within caught fire, began to whirl the pot round his head while running at full pelt down the ramp towards the advancing elephants. He was followed by his companions, all similarly equipped with flaming pitch pots.
Although the noise of battle was too great for Akbar to hear the crackle of musketry, his musketeers and archers in the howdahs had clearly begun to fire. Several Rajputs fell on the ramp, dropping their fire pots, but the rest ran on, including one man whose clothes had been set afire by burning pitch after a musket ball had shattered its clay container. Eventually this human torch collapsed into a flaming heap but not before he had waved a blazing arm to encourage his fellows on. Other Rajput attackers — hit by musket balls or arrows — plunged over the low wall that formed the side of the ramp, crashing to the ground below. Yet still the rest ran on, oblivious of their comrades’ deaths and the musket balls and arrows cracking and hissing around them.
A minute or two after they emerged, the leading Rajput threw his flaming pitch pot towards the first of Akbar’s elephants, which had just put its front feet on to the ramp. Moments later the Rajput, hit in the forehead by a musket ball, collapsed to the ground, but his pot of burning pitch burst squarely on its target’s head and its flaming contents began to run down the elephant’s armour. Some of it must have seeped between the steel plates or into the animal’s eyes because, maddened with pain and trumpeting wildly, it turned back from the ramp, striking the elephant behind it and setting the heavy planking of its howdah afire. Other pitch pots thrown from the walls above, as well as by the survivors of those who had run down the ramp, also found their targets.
To his horror, Akbar saw his soldiers begin to jump from the howdahs of the stricken elephants and run back towards their own lines. Some with their garments alight rolled on the dry ground to try to extinguish them. Others just ran on screaming in agony, orange flames billowing behind them, until they too fell. More elephants began to turn, streaked with flames. Akbar saw the mahout of one hammer into his mount’s brain the large steel spike which mahouts carried to kill wounded elephants to prevent them rampaging among their own men. The great beast collapsed almost immediately and was instantly still. Another mahout was less brave and jumped from his animal’s neck, leaving it to turn frenzied and riderless and run back trumpeting towards Akbar’s barricades with its howdah on fire. It crashed into one barricade and stumbled over. As it fell, it exposed its unprotected belly to some of Akbar’s musketeers, who despatched it with several shots. In its death throes, it rolled on its burning howdah, mercifully crushing the life from the soldiers trapped within. The pungent stench of singed and burning flesh, human and animal, now blowing across the battlefield and mingling with the acrid gunpowder smoke began to fill Akbar’s nostrils, and he knew this attack — like so many others previously — had no chance of success. To save further futile casualties, with a wave of his hand he ordered his forces to fall back and turned his own horse. How was he going to break the deadlock?
That evening, with the rays of the setting sun reflecting from the shoulder pieces of the gilded breastplate he now habitually wore when on campaign, Akbar was in sombre mood as he entered his scarlet command tent where his war council was assembling. His mind was still void of viable new stratagems as he took his place on a small throne placed at the centre of the semicircle in which Ahmed Khan and his other generals sat cross-legged. He had never needed their help and advice as much as he did now but he couldn’t help thinking they were an ill-assorted bunch. Some, like Muhammad Beg over there in his green and red striped robes, had served even longer than Ahmed Khan and had fought at Panipat with Babur in their youth and experienced all the trials of Humayun’s life and had the scars to show for it. Others, like the square-shouldered, extravagantly moustached Tajik Ali Gul, were younger and had only known Humayun’s last few battles. Yet others were even newer adherents. Some, such as the large, stout, red-turbaned figure of Raja Ravi Singh, noisily crunching almonds from the engraved copper dish in front of him, were the rulers of smaller states, even — like Ravi Singh himself — of Rajput ones, who had already submitted to Akbar’s suzerainty after his defeat of Hemu. Whatever their age or background, all his commanders had chastened expressions on their faces.
‘What were our casualties from today’s attack?’ asked Akbar.
Ahmed Khan replied. ‘We lost the pick of our war elephants as well as over three hundred men. Many others are so badly burned they may not survive.’
‘Despite the losses it was worth trying,’ said Akbar. ‘We must look to the use of more innovations such as the strengthened howdahs if we do not want to allow Rana Udai time to raise a great relieving army, or perhaps even to form an alliance with other Rajput rulers, before we can take Chittorgarh.’
‘He is unlikely to find allies,’ put in Ravi Singh quietly. ‘The ranas of Mewar have long alienated their fellow rulers with their pretensions to the leadership of all Rajasthan, and with the pompous and superior airs with which they treat their fellows.’
‘That’s good to hear, at least. Has Chittorgarh been conquered before, other than by treachery?’
‘Yes,’ answered Muhammad Beg, scratching the uneven bridge of his broken nose. ‘Over two hundred years ago by a man called Alauaddin Khilji and more recently by the Gujaratis.’
‘Can we learn anything from their methods?’
‘I know nothing of how Alauaddin Khilji succeeded: it is too long lost in history. However, when I was in Gujarat after your father’s siege of Champnir, I spoke to an old Gujarati who told me that in their attack they tried, as we have, to push strong barricades forward to allow attackers to approach nearer. They even constructed a kind of covered corridor made of thick hide — a sabat the man called it — which allowed them to get quite a distance up the ramp. But from what I gathered, their final victory was caused as much by deprivation and disease among the defenders as by anything else. I would have mentioned the covered corridors before if I hadn’t thought that, while they were successful in offering protection against arrows, they would be easily vulnerable to musket balls as well as to cannon fire.’