Hawksworth awoke at noon the following day to discover work had begun on fortification of the camp. He left Shirin sleeping and walked to the eastern perimeter, where the heavy cannon were being drawn into position. As he paused to study one of the cannon, he found himself comparing it with the European design. It looked to be a six-inch bore, with a molded iron barrel strengthened by brass hoops shrunk around the outside. It was bolted onto its own carriage, a flat base supported by four solid wooden wheels, and pulled by a team of ten white bullocks yoked in pairs. Cotton ropes almost two inches in diameter were tied
around the breech, looped beneath the axles and then through a heavy iron ring on the front of the mount, extending forward to hooks on the yokes of the bullocks.
While their drivers whipped the animals forward, a crowd of moustachioed infantry in red and green tunics clustered around the gun carriages pushing. A drummer in an orange cloak sat astraddle the breech of the cannon beating cadence for the other men on two large drums strapped along each side of the barrel. A large bull elephant trailed behind, heavy padding on his forehead, and whenever the gun carriage bogged, the elephant would be moved forward to shove the breech with his head.
As the cannon were rolled into position, some fifteen feet apart, they were being linked to each other with heavy ropes of twisted bull hide the size and strength of metal chain, to prevent cavalry from riding through and cutting down the gunners. After the hide ropes were camouflaged with brush, a leather screen was placed behind the breech of each gun to protect the gunners when it fired.
Hawksworth counted approximately three hundred cannon along the camp perimeter. Firepots were being stationed behind each gun, together with linstocks and leather barrels of powder. A few bags of dirt had been piled between some of the cannon to provide protection for matchlock men. Around the cannon, men were assembling piles of four-sided iron claws, and beyond, diggers with picks and wicker baskets had begun a halfhearted effort to start construction of a trench. He studied the preparations uneasily for a moment, sensing something was wrong, and then he froze.
There was no shot. Only stacks of iron claws.
He whirled and made his way back to the munitions depot, rows of yellow-fringed tents. The shot was there waiting, in gauge ranging from two inch to ten inch, but none had been moved.
He moved on to other tents and discovered several hundred more cannon. Some were the same gauge as those being deployed, others much larger. All had been fitted with harness, ready to be moved, but now they stood in long rows, waiting. As he moved onto another row of tents, pushing through the swarm of men and bullocks, he discovered a vast cache of smaller cannon, thousands, also mounted on wooden carriages but small enough to be moved by a bullock, or even two men. These too were harnessed and sat untouched.
Beyond there were other rows of tents, where seven-foot- long muskets—together with powder, bags of shot, and a wooden prong to rest the barrel on when firing—were now being broken out and distributed to the infantry. The men were being armed, but the camp itself was practically without fortification.
Hawksworth stood brooding about the preparations, about the Rajput horn bow he had only barely learned to use—he was finally able to hit the todah, practice target, a mound of earth piled near Jadar's officers' tent, but shooting under a shield seemed impossible—and the situation began to overwhelm him. Jadar's position was becoming more hopeless by the minute.