As he too turned away to make his way in the evening sunlight back to his own quarters, Nicholas couldn’t help wondering whether, generous as were Dara’s words about food and rewards for the troops and welcome as was his confidence in his officers, the prince shouldn’t himself be taking a more central role. Not least, it would give him a chance to get to know some of his commanders better, particularly some of the vassal rulers who had only arrived at Agra at his father’s summons just before the army left the city and had had little chance to meet Dara. To have full loyalty to a leader — particularly a prospective emperor fighting a civil war — a subordinate needed to know him and his virtues in addition to obtaining a general warm feeling about his own future prospects. From his own experience of the two northern campaigns Nicholas knew that neither Aurangzeb nor even Murad would have been so casual, but then they lacked Dara’s obvious charisma and their campaigns had ended in ignominious defeat. God willing they would suffer that fate again.
The Frenchman collapsed slowly from his saddle to hit the sandy ground with a gentle thud. Quickly Nicholas jumped from his own horse and ran over to him. Yet another casualty from the heat, he was sure. Reaching the man’s crumpled form he heaved him over on to his back and with the help of some other of his comrades quickly unbuckled the man’s heavy steel breastplate and lifted it from his chest. It was hot to the touch from the blistering sun. The Frenchman’s hands were twitching. His face was reddish-purple and his pale green eyes were rolling in his head as Nicholas unhooked his own water bottle from his belt, unstoppered it and tried to tip some of the warm liquid into the man’s mouth. A little went between his cracked lips and half-clenched teeth. Most trickled down his stubbly chin and neck.
The man began to cough and Nicholas poured a little more water. ‘Get a dhooli — a litter — to carry him back to the camp, but before you do put some damp cloths on his forehead,’ he ordered. The man might still survive. He hoped he would. The Frenchman was a stern fighter who had come to Hindustan from Bordeaux with a French trading party which he had quit for reasons he had never quite made clear but others said were connected to a missing ruby the size of a duck egg. If he did live, he would be luckier than many others, thought Nicholas, taking a swig himself from his water bottle. Three others of his men had collapsed — two dying on the spot — and he had seen several lifeless bodies carried away from the neighbouring regiment of infantry, arms dangling over the edges of simple stretchers fashioned from dead branches and palm leaves.
Just as they had planned, after three days’ gruelling march Dara’s forces had succeeded in blocking Aurangzeb and Murad’s army’s route to Agra, siting their camp on some low-lying hills — hillocks, really — which straddled the great trunk road to Agra about ten miles from the city at a place Nicholas had been told was called Samugarh. When they had realised that their initial plan to march north had been thwarted Aurangzeb and Murad had turned west amid great clouds of dust, attempting to outflank Dara’s vast army. In response he had countermarched his forces, shadowing his brothers and occasionally sending out small raiding parties to snatch prisoners or probe the strength of pickets. He and his officers had learned little in the process other than that his enemies seemed determined, prone neither to panic nor to surrender.
After two days of such manoeuvring back and forth on the plains around Samugarh, this morning, 7 June, the two armies had deployed in full battle formation, Dara retaining his slight initial advantage of the somewhat higher ground. As the airless morning had drawn on and the heat increased, none of the three brothers had appeared to wish to push for a decisive engagement. Nicholas had even wondered whether there might be a chance for negotiations, though this seemed unlikely. All that had happened for the past five hours was that both sides had stood still or sat on horseback in the broiling sun, which was now at its midday zenith. Both men and horses were falling victim to the heat. Flocks of bald-headed scrawny vultures were already perching on the bodies of some of the dead animals, pecking at eyes and bellies now spilling out skeins of bluish intestines, unwanted portents to the men of their own potential fate in battle when it was finally joined.
Glancing round, Nicholas saw that there was still little movement in the ranks of either army other than young water-bearers running with their gourds and bottles to attempt to slake the thirst of the soldiers although there were not enough of them — nor enough water — to prevent more men collapsing from the heat. In the next two hours Nicholas lost two further men, including one — a ginger-haired Scot named Alex Graham — who had soldiered with him since his first northern campaign with Murad and had begged him to take the five silver coins in the pouch at his waist and get them back to his family in the Scottish highlands. Nicholas had assured him he would, while realising how difficult it would be even if he himself survived, with civil unrest in Britain as well as Hindustan.
As he pondered this question he saw sudden movement in the ranks of the army opposite. Were they going to attack at last? Nicholas shouted to his men to prepare for action, glad that the waiting might be over — nothing could be worse than standing in this awful heat. A few minutes later he realised that there would be no battle that day. The enemy appeared to be retreating back to their camp, which was about a mile behind their current position. Soon the order came from Dara through one of his qorchis to return to their own camp on the hillocks. At least he would live another day, thought Nicholas as he turned his horse and gestured to his men to follow.
Chapter 19
The next morning Nicholas was up before dawn. In truth he had slept little that night. The war council he had attended the previous evening had agreed unanimously that rather than spend another day waiting for their opponents to make a move they should take advantage of their numerical superiority — eighty thousand men compared to their opponents’ fifty thousand — and seize the initiative, attacking with some of their elite cavalry early in the morning. As for Nicholas and his mercenaries, Dara had ordered them to form a reserve just behind his command tent, ready to reinforce any weak points or exploit any breakthroughs. In doing so they were to utilise their military experience and steadiness under fire to the full, bolstering the nervous and restraining the rash.
Nicholas made a quick round of his men, shaking awake any so nerveless as still to be asleep, giving a word of encouragement here, checking the sharpness of a blade there, but above all exhorting everyone to carry as much water as they could. Afterwards he climbed with his morning meal to the top of the hillock around which his men were encamped to survey the opposing battle lines, each stretching more than a mile and a half as they faced each other across the dry plains. While he sipped his clay cup of lassi — a mixture of yogurt and water — ate several round chapattis, delicious when hot from the skillet as these were, and gnawed on a bony hunk of chicken thigh, he looked beyond Dara’s scarlet command tent and his army’s front lines to those of the enemy. He saw that Aurangzeb and Murad’s men were also up and busy. Even at a distance his keen eyesight could make out howdahs being hoisted on to elephants and troops of horsemen preparing to mount in front of the orderly ranks of tents. Suddenly — it could not have been more than an hour after dawn — he heard the crash of artillery and white smoke billowed from the batteries of heavy bronze cannon opposite, drawn up in the centre of the enemy position near a large pavilion which he imagined must be the headquarters of Aurangzeb and Murad. So Dara’s brothers were as unwilling as he was to put off the decisive encounter any longer.