Free Empire of the Moghul: The Serpent's Tooth by Alex Rutherford Page B

hillside, water bottles and spare ammunition slung across their backs together with their muskets, to take up positions behind rocky outcrops just outside the range of enemy fire so that they could join the action quickly when it began.
    Once the elephants had arrived and the gunners had loaded the cannon in their howdahs with powder and ball, sweating in the afternoon heat as they rammed the shot down the barrels, Shah Jahan gave the command for them to advance. They began to do so steadily and slowly, with groups of musketeers, archers and foot soldiers running along behind them, taking advantage of the protection afforded by their bulk. His scouts had told Shah Jahan that they did not believe the rebels had even small cannon. Nevertheless, he waited apprehensively for a crash and burst of white smoke from the hillside to show that they had been mistaken and he had once more underestimated his enemies’ strength and cunning. None came.
    By now, his leading elephants were more than halfway up the slope and the gunners in their howdahs were bringing their small cannon into action. Shah Jahan saw a long portion of the fortress’s brick wall collapse after being hit by some of the cannon balls. Some enemy horsemen who had been sheltering behind it rode out through the dust but Shah Jahan was sure others had been trapped by the falling debris. Still there was no answering cannon fire from the Bijapurans. His scouts must have been right – they had no cannon, he thought with relief. The assault was going well and now was the time for him to join it with his main body of horsemen. Waving his sword as the signal to attack, he began to gallop forward. As they saw him and his bodyguard advance, other horsemen surrounding the hill took up the charge until, green banners billowing, they were riding at the fortress from all sides.
    Kicking his horse onward while taking care to avoid the scattered rocks, Shah Jahan soon came up with the war elephants. Suddenly one – a massive beast with three gunners as well as a small cannon in its open howdah – raised its red-painted trunk and began to trumpet in pain. A lucky musket shot had hit it not where the overlapping steel plates of its armoured surcoat gave some protection but in the right eye socket. With blood pouring down its cheek and running on to its curved tusk, it turned from the advance and slowly crashed to the ground, dislodging both the gunners and the bronze cannon. The weapon fell into the path of the mounted bodyguard immediately on Shah Jahan’s right, bringing his horse to the ground and trapping its rider by his leg between its flank and a large jagged rock.
    The bodyguard’s scream of agony reached Shah Jahan’s ears above the other sounds of battle. As it did so, he himself felt a sharp pain in his left ankle and his mount skittered sideways, half rearing. The fallen horse, thrashing its legs, had kicked both of them. Hot pain searing his ankle, Shah Jahan reined in his horse and tried to bring it under control, but for some moments it crossed the line of his advancing cavalry, slowing their charge up the hill, which was particularly steep at this point. Just as he regained mastery of his mount, Shah Jahan became aware of a party of at least thirty enemy horsemen galloping from the fortifications now no more than three hundred yards away, intent on exploiting the temporary chaos in this section of his advance.
    Musketeers firing from the elephant howdahs knocked two enemy riders from their saddles before the rest, benefitting from the impetus provided by the slope, crashed into Shah Jahan’s troops. One bearded rider, yelling wildly, thrust his lance deep into the cheek of a war elephant, which veered sharply away from the attack and crashed back down the hill, trampling some of the foot soldiers who had been following in its wake. Another rebel horseman caught the grey mount of one of Shah Jahan’s bodyguards full in the chest with his long lance, killing the