‘Majesty, where are your bodyguards?’ Baba Yasaval broke off from waving his own men back into tighter formation. Humayun suddenly realised that none of them had succeeded in following him through the press and that Sher Shah’s fighters now completely filled the small corridor through which he had come. They had almost surrounded himself and Baba Yasaval and his men, cutting them off from either help or retreat.
‘Baba Yasaval, we must keep as close order as we can to protect ourselves and each other until either more of our warriors arrive or we can identify a break-out route. If we keep our backs to the wall of the outcrop our rear at least will be protected.’
Humayun and Baba Yasaval waved their other soldiers together, but as they attempted to obey, three of Sher Shah’s riders surrounded a horseman and one of them knocked him from his mount with a swinging flail. One of the fallen man’s companions kicked his own horse forward to try to save him only to be killed instantly by a stroke from a two-headed battleaxe which caught him by his Adam’s apple and decapitated him. Another of Sher Shah’s men meanwhile despatched the man knocked from his saddle by the flail. At the same time, the purple-turbaned officer separated another of Baba Yasaval’s unhorsed men from his protectors and stuck him in the groin with his lance. The wounded soldier’s legs and heels thrashed against the ground for about a minute and then he lay still.
There were now only nine men left with Baba Yasaval and Humayun, two of whom were unhorsed and another badly wounded in the head. Then, the purple-turbaned officer waved Sher Shah’s riders in for the kill as Humayun and his soldiers retreated until they were only a few yards from the side of the outcrop. At this point it was almost twenty feet high and nearly sheer, clearly impossible to ride up on a horse and offering no obvious route for a climber on foot.
One of the nine men with Baba Yasaval was a young trumpeter whose smooth-skinned face had as yet no need of the barber. He still had his instrument strapped to his back. Baba Yasaval shouted to him, ‘Sound your trumpet so we may get help. The rest of you protect him while he does so.’ The trumpeter succeeded in taking his three-foot-long trumpet from his back and putting it to his lips. However, at first no sound came and the youth looked at Baba Yasaval in alarm and panic.
‘Calmly, boy,’ said Baba Yasaval. ‘The excitement and fear of battle have dried your mouth. Cough and try to wet your lips with your tongue.’
The youth obediently coughed and licked his lips before trying again.This time, the full sound issued from the trumpet’s brass mouth — the rallying call of Humayun’s men.
‘And again, boy, and again!’
Three more of Humayun’s riders had been killed in valiantly providing protection for the young trumpeter before suddenly the purple-turbaned officer swerved his black horse towards the trumpeter and with his long lance caught the boy in his right armpit, exposed as he kept the trumpet to his lips, unhorsing him. He was killed by a further stab of his assailant’s lance as he lay on the ground.
Humayun, seeing another of Sher Shah’s horsemen ride towards one of the two remaining men who were on foot, kicked his own horse to meet the rider’s charge, blocking his path to his target. As the man pulled hard at his reins to guide his mount round Humayun, Humayun cut at his wrists severing one of his hands, causing the rider to lose control and be carried away into the melee. Humayun extended his hand to the man on foot to pull him up behind him on his horse. But as he did so, a spear thrown by an unknown assailant pierced the soldier’s chest and another spear hit Humayun’s horse in the neck. It staggered and collapsed, blood pouring from the wound.
Humayun slipped from the saddle and, as the purple-turbaned officer kicked on to attack him, ran back towards the steep face of the outcrop, zigzagging sharply to put the rider off his aim with his deadly lance. Coming close to the rock face, Humayun realised it was indeed impossible to climb, at least with an assailant armed with a long lance close behind. So Humayun turned at bay, with Alamgir in his right hand and a foot-long, serrated-edged dagger drawn from his belt in his left. Pivoting on the balls of his feet so that he could dart this way and that once the officer attacked, Humayun waited.
The officer charged seconds later, his lance tip pointed at Humayun who left it until the very last moment to jump aside. Thwarted, the officer swerved and turned to try again. As he did so, Baba Yasaval — now unhorsed too and bleeding from a deep sword slash to his face — ran in front of Humayun and, as the officer charged, struck at his horse. He succeeded in bringing the animal down but at the cost of taking its rider’s lance full in the abdomen. Humayun ran forward towards the purple-turbaned man who, although winded by his fall from his horse, was quickly on his feet with sword drawn to parry Humayun’s first blow with Alamgir. He managed to fend off the second blow too but while he did so, Humayun struck with the dagger in his left hand, striking the man in the throat and twisting the dagger’s jagged blade as it entered to cause fatal damage. The officer’s warm blood spurted all over Humayun’s hand.
‘Majesty, we heard the trumpet,’ a voice came from above on top of the vertical outcrop. Humayun glanced up. Some of his men — from the cast of their features and the colour and cut of their orange clothes members of the army of one of his Rajput vassals — had succeeded in getting on top of the outcrop and were peering over the edge. As Humayun turned again to face his attackers — he seemed to be the only survivor of those trapped beneath the outcrop — one of the Rajputs fired a black-shafted arrow, felling the horse of one of Sher Shah’s men. A second arrow wounded another man in the leg. The rest of Humayun’s attackers recoiled as if to consider their next move. In the few seconds while they did so, the Rajput archer uncoiled his orange turban from around his head. He threw one end of the material, which was about ten feet long, over the edge of the outcrop where it hung blowing slightly in the breeze about a foot above Humayun’s head.
‘Grab hold of my turban cloth, Majesty. I will pull you to safety.’
Humayun hesitated and looked around him. Baba Yasaval was still lying where he’d fallen, slumped against the steep side of the outcrop. His helmetless head with its grey stubble was down on his chest and trickles of blood were still seeping from his nostrils and the corners of his lips and dripping down on to his breastplate. His arms were by his side but his legs were splayed and the lance still protruded from his abdomen. He was surely dead and Humayun could see no sign of life in any other of his men.
Any moment now his attackers would close in again to finish him off, Humayun realised. His duty to both his destiny and his dynasty was to save himself. Transferring Alamgir to his left hand, he reached up with his right and grasped the orange turban cloth tightly. Immediately he felt the material tauten and as he scrambled with his feet against the stone rock face for added impetus he began to rise. Suddenly, his attackers, seeing that he was about to escape, rushed towards him.
Humayun slashed awkwardly at the foremost of them with Alamgir in his left hand but the cut went home, the sharp blade slicing into the man’s forehead as he looked upward, almost detaching a flap of skin and causing blood to pour down into his eyes. At the same time, Humayun felt the air move close to him as a Rajput from above threw his battleaxe at the next attacker, catching him in the muscle of his upper arm, and he too fell back. A third hesitated for a moment and that hesitation allowed Humayun to scramble and pull himself over the edge and on to the top of the outcrop. He scarcely noticed that the scar tissue on his right forearm and hand had opened up under the pressure imposed on it as he had been pulled up and was now bleeding profusely.