‘But couldn’t we strengthen them by using stones and mud for the sides and heavy wooden planking for the roof?’ asked Ahmed Khan.
‘It would take a long time and cost many lives, Majesty,’ put in Ali Gul.
‘But so have all our other fruitless attacks,’ Akbar pointed out. ‘My grandfather Babur once said that an emperor must recognise that to win and expand an empire he has to be prepared to sacrifice lives — even potentially his own and those of his closest adherents and family. Only when victory is complete may he show compassion and compensate as best he can the families of the fallen. The idea of sabats is worth pursuing. Have plans drawn up. Send parties in search of more stones and supplies of timber. To give those working on the construction some protection, throw up thick hide screens as the Gujaratis did. They will stop arrows, and the Rajputs won’t want to expend too much of their powder in firing cannons and muskets randomly on unseen targets, for fear of exhausting their supplies.’
Akbar was feeling optimistic as he sat on his horse at the entrance of one of his two great sabats. They were proving quicker to construct than he had anticipated. A forest only a few miles away had provided good quantities of thick tree trunks for timbers. Prisoners had been put to the backbreaking work of quarrying stone. Chittorgarh’s defenders had proved, as Akbar had predicted, reluctant to waste powder on musket and cannon fire and the hide screens had indeed provided a degree of protection from arrows. Nevertheless up to a hundred men a day — mostly poor barefoot labourers lured by the silver coin offered by Akbar — had been killed as they worked.
As he had promised he would, Akbar had had his clerks carefully record the names of the dead and wounded in leather-bound ledgers so that they or their families could receive compensation once victory was secured. The sabat Akbar was entering had been constructed on a huge scale. It was — as Muhammad Beg, whom he had put in charge of the works, proudly assured him — wide enough to accommodate ten horsemen riding abreast or a team of oxen pulling a small cannon, and high enough to allow even a large war elephant to get through. Akbar knew from the reports reaching him that, while the sabats were advancing sinuously and inexorably up and round the slopes leading to the ramp, like the tentacles of some predatory creature, they had not yet reached their target, but it could not be long. .
‘How far does this sabat extend at the moment, Muhammad Beg?’ he asked.
‘To about a hundred yards from the foot of the ramp. We had a setback three days ago when a Rajput sortie managed to set fire to some of the roof timbers. Only a display of great bravery by our labourers, who formed a bucket chain all the way from our wells to put the fire out, prevented the destruction of the forward quarter of the sabat.’
‘Let me know the names of any who merit special reward.’
‘Majesty.’
‘Now let me see for myself the inside of one of these sabats.’ Akbar kicked his black horse gently forward into the darkness of the entrance. The thick wooden roof made it cooler inside. As he went further along, a sour aroma — a combination of damp earth, smoke, and sweat, urine and faeces both animal and human — began to build up in his nostrils. Occasional torches of cloth dipped in pitch placed in holders in the walls provided the only light. By each stood a labourer with leather buckets of sand as well as water beside him, ready to douse any flame that looked like getting out of hand and setting alight the resinous wood of the roof. As Akbar passed these labourers, most of whom were dressed in little but a loincloth and a ragged shirt, they prostrated themselves before him. Sometimes he dismounted to speak briefly to them — a question about where they came from or the extent of their family, a word of encouragement and a gift of a small coin — before moving forward again.
As he was listening to a wizened, white-haired torch-bearer explain that he was the head of a large family from a hamlet called Gurgaon near Delhi, a dull thud shook the wall of the sabat, dislodging many small stones and one or two larger ones. The labourer flung himself to the ground but soon scrambled to his feet upon seeing Akbar still standing, holding on to his rearing horse. Shamefacedly he said, ‘I apologise. I am not as brave when these cannon balls strike as you, Majesty.’
‘You are sufficiently brave to stay at your post,’ said Akbar. ‘And remember something my father told me about battle. If you hear the sound of an impact or an explosion, you have survived it.’
The labourer smiled briefly. ‘I will remember, Majesty.’ Akbar slipped him some small coins, and the man raised both his hands above his head and pressed them together in the Hindu form of salutation. Then Akbar rode on through the sabat. Before long, despite its tortuous bends, he could see some light dimly reflected from the mouth. Occasionally he heard a musket shot, either from his own men trying to protect the workers as they laboured in the open air or from the defenders on the battlements above who were trying to pick them off. Once he heard a strangled cry which transformed into an animal-like shriek before dying away. By now, Akbar knew enough of the sounds of battle to realise that another of his labourers had died in his cause.
Soon he was at the end of the sabat where boulders were piled ready to extend the walls near stacks of roughly sawn tree trunks for the roof. Just within the tunnel’s mouth sweating labourers were mixing buckets of water with dry earth to make mud to serve as a kind of cement to hold the walls together. Akbar and Muhammad Beg dismounted. Both men put on their helmets and with bodyguards holding large metal shields in front of them made their way across a patch of open ground towards one of the rock piles which would provide them with some protection.
‘Majesty, if you come here you will have a good view of Chittorgarh’s battlements,’ called an officer from a little further along the mound. His clothes and once white turban were streaked with dust and mud.
‘Be careful, Majesty,’ said Muhammad Beg. ‘If you can see the battlements, those upon them can see you and they may recognise you from your gilded breastplate.’
‘My men daily expose themselves to such risks. I shouldn’t scruple to do the same,’ said Akbar. He manoeuvred along to where the officer was standing pointing upwards. The top of the walls was clearly visible and there seemed to be some kind of lookout platform on them. After Akbar had watched for a minute or two, he saw two figures emerge on to the lookout and begin scanning the Moghuls’ position keenly. One — a tall, black-bearded man — pointed something out to the other. From the sparkling flashes as the sun caught the rings on his fingers and from his general demeanour he was clearly an important commander. Akbar whispered to the white-turbaned officer, ‘Get me two loaded muskets and a firing tripod. I want to bring down these fine fellows.’
Quickly two of the musketeers posted at the entrance to the sabat passed their weapons and a tripod forward to Akbar. The only way that Akbar could get sufficient elevation on the six-foot-long musket while keeping it steady on its tripod was by lowering himself on to the dusty ground and half-lying, half-crouching behind the musket. As quietly and as quickly as he could, he aligned the barrel on the jewelled man, just as if his target were a tiger in a jungle clearing. Holding his breath to keep himself as still as he was able, he fired. Coughing from the acrid smoke of the discharge, he saw the man pitch forward and plunge from the lookout platform to smash with a dull thud into the ground only a few yards away. His companion disappeared before Akbar could ready the second musket.