Empire of the Moghul: Brothers at War Read Online Free PDF Page B

Suddenly he was through, pulling up his snorting, panting horse as his men rallied around him.
    Immediately he had enough men, Humayun charged back into the column a second time. A tall Gujarati cut at him with his curved sword, striking his breastplate and knocking Humayun back in the saddle.As Humayun struggled to control his rearing horse, the Gujarati rode at him again and, overeager to finish his victim off, aimed a swinging sword cut at Humayun’s head. Humayun reacted instinctively, ducking under the blade which hissed through the air just above his helmet. Before the Gujarati could recover, Humayun quickly thrust Alamgir deep into his abdomen. As the man dropped his sword and clutched the wound, Humayun coolly and deliberately struck at the back of his opponent’s neck, almost severing his head from his shoulders.
    Glancing about him, Humayun saw through the billowing red dust that the Gujarati column was disintegrating. Some of the horsemen were galloping away in panic. Others in the middle of the column were, however, offering stouter resistance, defending the wagons which presumably contained the baggage and the cannon. Humayun knew that even if he captured them, he would not be able to carry off any cannon because they would slow down his force whose entire purpose was fast raiding. However, he could disable them. With the blood of battle thumping in his veins and yelling to his trumpeter to sound the order to follow him, Humayun immediately charged towards the baggage wagons.
    Suddenly he heard the crack of a musket – then of another. Some of the Gujarati musketeers had got their weapons into operation and were firing from the cover of the baggage carts. One of the horses galloping ten yards from Humayun was hit, falling headfirst into the dust and catapulting its rider to the ground where he lay twitching a moment before the horses of his comrades following behind kicked and tossed him beneath their hooves, extinguishing any life lingering in his body.
    Humayun knew that he must reach the wagons before the musketeers could reload. Waving Alamgir once more, he kicked his horse on and almost immediately was among the carts. He cut at one musketeer who was endeavouring with shaking hands to ram the metal ball down into the long barrel of his musket with a steel rod. Struck across his face, the man collapsed, dropping his weapon. The enemy had had no time to pull the wagons into any defensive formations and so Humayun’s men, who had quickly joined him, found it easy to surround and subdue the defenders of individual wagons. More of the Gujarati cavalry galloped away and the infantry and camp followers were also fleeing as fast as they could.
    Resistance was at an end – at least for the present. However, Humayun knew that his force was considerably outnumbered and that when the Gujarati officers realised this, they would try to regroup and attack him. Therefore there was no time to waste. Humayun ordered a detachment of his cavalry to pursue the fugitives, cutting down as many as they could but riding no more than a couple of miles before returning to form a loose defensive perimeter. He gestured to other men to investigate the contents of the wagons. They went at it with a will, throwing off the heavy jute covers to reveal six medium-sized cannon and their powder and shot as well as bundles of new spears and five boxes of muskets.
    ‘We’ll take all the muskets. Empty the boxes. Strap bundles of the muskets to the saddles of some of the spare horses. Fill the cannon barrels with as many linen bags of powder as they will take and then run a trail of powder along the ground to those rocks over there. We’ll ignite the powder from behind them,’ Humayun said.
    A quarter of an hour later the work was complete. Humayun despatched most of his men to a safe distance but remained with a few of his bodyguards to oversee the destruction. He gave the honour of firing the powder to a tall young Badakshani who, taking