But By The Chance of War

By Richard C Lyons

But by the Chance of War is a uniquely different type of book. The book presents four dramatic stories of war from India's fight with the Ephthalite Huns, to the Fall of Fort Niagara in the Seven Years War, to the trenches of World War I, and finally to modern-day circumstances and actions in the Middle E

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lylea Creative Resources, LLC
• Release date: Jun 15, 2012
• ISBN: 9780985728717

Book preview

BUT BY THE CHANCE OF WAR

img1.png

PART ONE

MATHURA

CONTENTS

PART ONE

MATHURA

MAP

CHARACTERS

ACT I

ACT II

ACT III

ACT IV

img4.png

CHARACTERS

PART ONE

MATHURA

ROYAL GUPTAS:

BHRAMIN:

GENERALS OF INDIA:

Ashara

Darshan

Amedkar

Tukarem

Asrani

COMMANDERS OF BHAMNS’S FORCES:

Shekar

Jagjel

Silesh

Ashwin

ADJUTANT:

EPHTHALITE HUNS:

OTHERS:

ACT ONE

SCENE ONE

ON THE OUTSKIRTS OF MATHURA

Place: In the vales and fields to the south of Mathura, the principal Temple City in the western provinces of the Gupta Empire

Present: Prince Chandra Gupta and Ashara, a general of the Eastern Indian Armies; later Sita and Asunaya, their respective wives.

Scene: The drama begins with the joining of two great armies of India in the year 515 C.E., just to the south of the provincial capital of Mathura and to the west of the Jumna River. The armies represent the recruitment of soldiery throughout the subcontinent to meet the menace of Hun invaders, led by the warlord Khan Tomara, whose forces now populate Ghandhara, a northwestern province of the Gupta Empire, and threaten the invasion of the Indo-Gangetic plains. Leading the forces from the south is the commander, Chandra Gupta, the son and heir of the reigning emperor, Bhamn Gupta. Leading the armies from the east is Gen. Ashara, among his army are his wife, Asunaya, and Chandra’s wife, Sita, who is with child.

You bring an ample corps, prepared to serve!

Since our first days at the academy

Your friendship has always brought me remedy!

How was your passage across yon river?

Seeing your host, Sita is moving forth

To greet her husband, love, and noble lord!

Between Spring and Monsoon’s¹ yearly event:

When warmth opens the locks of winter’s vault,

And mountains melt beneath the Sun’s assault

Loosening the crystal, moon-kissing snows

That flood these streams from Himalayan abodes…

And when Koel² flocks fly before the clouds

Which bear Ocean’s pregnant rains from the south.

Whence nature’s made bountiful in the deluge

Which pours upon us through the blessing monsoons.

Foretelling the season that’s cruelly kind:

When whirlwinds form in heaven to invade

Cleansing the globe of its senility,

Flooding hollows with bright vitality,

Clearing fading fields for fertile vigor,

Seeding the lands through the Monsoon’s rigors!

Then will come a stirring of calm rivers!

By then, within good Mathura we’ll rest;

For a night secure from Monsoon’s first shoots;

Then, with tomorrow’s dawn, forth we will move,

From temples and gardens of Mathura,

That one-time cradle and city of Krishna,³

To join royal arms ‘fore Indraprashta!⁴

With what may unfold of the Hun’s advance.

Leaving no escape - save their promised death!

Why show barbaric foes further lenience

When they do our patience further offence?

Were we not patient before their invasion

Through northwest corridors of our kingdom?

Did we not give the Huns lands and massy gold

To abide in peace and to leave us alone?

Did we not afford them arts of civilization,

Which they now use against our nation!

We thought to wear them down in Ghandhara.⁵

You know the child’s tale of the babe leopard:

Once mature, he listens to no shepherd!

They follow only when they’ve need of food;

When full of red meat, they become obtuse:

Though you pet and feed the starveling infant,

You cannot rule the adult’s feral spirit!

They say the Hun’s soul bears the scar of the cold

Of Caucasus⁶ from whence their race is known

And that their babes are born from wombs of stone!

They furrow with iron their newborn’s cheeks

Before giving them a mother’s warming teats!

Before their babes take infant strides in life,

They’re lashed to a horse’s back and made to ride!

They’re taught to eat their meat bloody and raw...

Can hearts formed so cold be then made to thaw?

Born and bred frozen as mountainous steppes:

They have in their chests the ice of Caucasus!

All the Hun ever wanted is dominion!

They’re a madness of wind and lightning,

Perverse herds beyond the scope of taming!

Their liberty is full of menacing:

We must fight these hyenas as lions

Colliding prides embraced in defiance!

From sickened provinces to those yet pure,

Where they roam they bring malignant danger!

While King Bhamn holds ‘fore Indraprashta’s fort,

We with our corps will ascend from the south -

The Hun are in a hellish net, don’t doubt!

They’re in the vice, with the numbers we bring

We will destroy their barbaric armies!

But I’ve tales to tell of a city damned -

Have you heard what we met at Eran?⁸

We arrived to that city’s immense ports

With our requests of men, money and stores,

We hold with cities of our provinces:

That for fruits of common justice and peace,

Sacrifice of men we expect from each!

This is the central hold of our union,

Since ‘twas consigned as a gift of Heaven!

‘We need men and means with immediacy

To conquer the Huns - our common enemy,’

Said I. Then a man came forth on the wall

To say: ‘We are not by princes enthralled

We are capable of standing on our own,

We need no protection from distant thrones!

We manage the scope of our government

And dissolve the laws of your covenant!’

‘Should we abide prayers of foreign men

Who demand we send youths on paths of death?’

‘You crack,’ said I, ‘the prop of that justice,

That’s held since the empire was an infant!

I’ve brought two essential deities to plead:

Those of Reason and Necessity

Who demand men for our common army!’

‘We’ve gods of our own we follow’ said he,

Those of Peace, of Ease, and of Luxury...

Besides’, said he, ‘I’ve at home a pet bird,

Who finds no enemies within his wing’s search,

Why then disturb the soft peace of our perch?’

‘Huns,’ said I, ‘are enemies of the world,

Whose range nearly threatens all that is yours,

Even your haunts of luxury: your taverns!

Think before denying our great union:

Your parting may breed riots of ruin -

Breeding division and scatter’d fission

Cleaving Empire through every dimension!

You may as well seek to sever a heart,

That cannot self exist, when cut apart;

While severing access to sacred blood

Which feeds the organs of all that we love!

You may as well tear the blessed connection

‘Twixt yourself and your nearest relation:

And be self-devoured in the conflagration!

You can’t divide what is fundamental,

Without sequel, both horrible and fatal!’

‘Strike me now,’ said I, ‘and swift for my life,

Than to let me witness with bleeding eyes,

The choking necrosis by slow degrees,

Of sinew and limbs from our empery!’

‘I would be glad,’ said he, ‘to battle you here!’

‘But the hour of my lunch and nap draws near

Should you want the resources of this town,

You must spend precious days tearing her down!’

‘For you,’ said I, ‘I am to a battle due,

Should we lose; the Huns will come lunch with you!

Good appetite, cur, while you’ve time to dine,

Should we lose, joy of your future is mine!’

I tired of insults from rebel tongues,

And without time, this coward city to crush;

So withstood, we moved off.

While we bleed for him, he’ll snore on his couch!

At all events, they lost us an entire day,

While we battled with words on that dusty plain!

From Prince Samudra, from his encampment!

Man, how long have you been riding?

Chandra reads his brother Samudra’s letter to Ashara.

And free of any hindrance in your approach.

We have noted a rising energy,

In the Huns and their lightning cavalry!

They descend on us in mighty waves,

Their third attack was just repulsed today;

We have fought them well but their numbers grow,

Nor do we yet know what reserves they hold:

So much for gold spent from our treasuries -

The Hun paid our gold to mercenaries!

The buildup of Hun horse is our concern.

While of our horse there is naught to learn:

Sudhile, the trader, says our horse are gathered,

Are training now and will be delivered,

To our three allotted encampment sites,

Horses ready for mounts, but he needs time.

Meanwhile, in intervals, as planned, we train:

Moving spear to cavalry and back again,

Adapting forces between disciplines

For when this late supply of horse comes in!

We feel a growing sense of nervousness:

Timing in war bears the strongest currents;

If we don’t soon reap these vital shipments,

The Hun may surprise our best resistance.

At all events, we are buoyant and pleased

That you come to reinforce the armies.

We hear that Bhuda is at Sthenesvara -

And you will soon be passing Mathura.

Don’t loiter for garden tours with Sita!

Use all haste to make for Indraprashta:

That we may rule empires happy with tears,

Singing joys of peace for a thousand years!

By the way, we look forward to that birth

Sita will endure to renew the world!

I hope the Prince has Sita’s eyes and face,

Should he look like us - what a damned disgrace!

Yours in love, as in our blood, Samudra"

They have been fully engaged for a week!

God! Hold up our hopes and their strengths!

And here comes my princess, my dear Sita!

To find the vivid frame of my Love’s form,

Abandoning the gaze with drowning eyes,

For I found not my house of paradise!

My heart bursts to see you in beauty crowned!

You are my lodestar, wherever I roam,

My soul orbits your own - that is my home!

While love’s denied, for the better of the State!

Eternal chrysolite⁹ would kingdoms become!

Tell, love, how’s your health and of our unborn?

Here are some flowers, plucked before the storm.

Sita hands Chandra a bundle of flowers…

Tender vessel in a vessel gentle,

You must soon be swathed in the world’s mantle,

Where adverse winds and chaotic thunders

It seems you come cradled in a tempest

As Monsoon’s rains will soon be upon us.

In a whisper…

I’ll defeat our enemies’ dread designs

That you, a greater Empire may colonize!

Thunder is heard rumbling.

Time to move, Prince, with our ready lovers!

Applauding us from the sky’s magazines!

Scarce gazing on mortals, with careless eyes.

End of Act One Scene One

ACT ONE

SCENE TWO

MATHURAN SENTINELS

Place: The southern watchtowers of Mathura

Present: Gowind and Ajay with Atmaram arriving.

Scene: The southern walls of Mathura overlook the rolling approaches to the capital city. It is late afternoon and the horizon has begun to fill with the clouds of looming monsoon rains.

But portends further days of blossoming!

That the advent of the Monsoon draws nigh:

Her onset of winds from the south start soft,

But as powers converge they become rough!

You should know the marks of seasons by now,

Though the sun still shines, she’s closing in clouds;

Seasons after seasons have their sights and sounds,

Naught stays the march of their eternal rounds.

Enter Atmaram

Old friend, it’s time for the guard to rotate?

When sprawling Mathura goes all quiet!

Which the defense of our fortress requires,

Have gone dark from Indraprashta’s bastions!

Drowning their fires, debilitating their flare?

With colors waving, through forests of spears!

Of southern India are approaching!

The prince arrives on the appointed day!

Signal the town with the blasting of horn -

Clarion the city! A new hope is born,

A savior Son emerges, before the storm!

End of Act One Scene Two

ACT ONE

SCENE THREE

ENTRY TO MATHURA

Place: Advancing through the southern approach to Mathura

Present: Prince Chandra and Princess Sita, Gen. Ashara and wife Asunaya, Aide de Camp Mahedhara, and attendant troops.

Later: The Mayor of Mathura and assorted citizenry

Scene: The armies of Chandra Gupta have achieved the southern rise overlooking the city of Mathura, renowned throughout the ancient world for its school and manufacture of colossal sculpture and for being the birthplace of Krishna. The Jumna River curves behind and defines the city’s eastern margins. The sunset casts its last beams on the prominent forewalls of Krishna’s birthplace. To the south of the armies, the sky is threatening. As the scene proceeds, the army is moving to the great portal doors of the city.

On yonder city, eclipsing the sky:

Witness what hands of men, who lowly trod,

Have artfully wrought to mimic the gods!

Trembling on walls as the sun is subdued:

Deep colors suffused - luminous as pearl -

Encircle ramparts of yon novel world;

Fewer stars people the infinite spheres

Than are sky-inhabiting steeples here;

Woven with colossal images and forms:

The huge frames of gods lustrously adorned!

What mortal can so beautifully range

So animated or effulgent a stage,

Than this scene that bids the soul weep and burst

With joy, as midst a spiritual birth!

May we have a moment to linger here?

This view forcefully moves emotion I bear!

Striving with the wake of the setting sun.

Disaster engenders at feet of sloth

As with the warts, boils, or pustules that rot!

But wake the inner sanctum of your ear

And Mathura’s storied history hear:

Two centuries past, this Samudra’s Path,

Wended north and west through wild savage tracts:

‘Twas a post abandoned: to law unknown

Since Sakas¹⁰ held a regional throne.

This place was prostrate ‘neath a savage age,

Void of reason, and of all civil grace:

Both man and beast were a single kind:

Ruled in pursuits by lust and appetite.

Justice and the tenants of the Heavens

Were fallen in gross ruins, defenseless:

Temples were stables of jackals and thieves;

The courts were caves of unheard griefs.

Whence came on the place in a manner fierce,

Warlike Samudra to subdue frontiers!¹¹

A warrior whose orbiting sword and shield

Bid contraries: perish or bend or yield;

So small tyrants and shadow-borne brigands

Took to armed field, or fled in cowardice!

Where this lion thunderously tread

No haunt, hill or mead was unconquered -

The West was scourged by fire and purified

As an evil generation fled or died.

Thence, as voices of nature’s denizens

Tone in scales ‘neath the cries of the lions -

Harmony, long dead, arose in forests,

Cities were built on their disused relics;

Cultivation grew in once-abandoned soils;

Earth’s good fruits became universal spoils.

Neighboring spheres are not more firmly held

By the Sun’s sweet radiance - soft compelled,

As Samudra’s light did warm all to awe,

The virtues inherent in majestic law!

Allied regions sang praises in a wedded choir:

Like constellated tapers in a canopy of fire!

Through this first portal of light: Mathura,

Through this ancient, blessed birthplace of Krishna,

Grew a beautiful and a lasting aura...

This ingress was nourished by gilt legends

Till glossed to a mineral resplendence:

Outpouring the vigor of a lodestone

Luring the learned to this central home!

Wondrous structures grew among the admix

Of a teeming and talented populace,

Building various schools of novel thought,

And temples where faithful prayers were wrought!

Ménages of artists and divers crafts,

All framed a flourishing city and lands:

A safe harbor for persons of soft hands

The sensible or sentient of man!

Where, freely, they may the world enfigure

With the bounds and lines of sacred number.

Or in peaceful breath send their orisons

To the numberless stars of the Heavens,

Or devise with their fleeting hands and eyes

The fixed brow of a god’s eternal guise!

This safe harbor has also proved a seed,

Whose petal and filament blossoming,

Has sent spawnings from these soft encasings:

Shipping souls on the Jumna and Ganges,

Spreading their artistry, faith, and teaching,

As threads of a new, living tapestry,

Interweaving this region with beauty!

Thus, from seacoasts to the Himalayan arc,

And from the Ganges west to the Kandahar,

Mathura is the crystalline lodestar -

Of our mind and soul, she is the hearth,

She is the heart of India’s three worlds!

Standing as she does at the intersect

Between the ancient east and regions west,

She is, with Sthenesvara, the gilt key

To the ranged wealth of the Inter-Ganges:

She is where our Indian destinies meet!

Look fore, to the walls we are approaching:

The whole populace has thronged en wild masse

In every door, window and portcullis,

As bees about a flower’s bright calyx

To cast beaming eyes on a beloved prince!

Petals are pouring from without the turrets

Like waves of colored rain in soft tempests,

And the low-hung, huge ramparts are eclipsed

By purple clouds of a welcoming incense!

Note, musicians play a composition

To match the pitch of this jubilation.

I feel blessed to be such a witness

To joyous frenzy of happy madness!

With a feeling they’ve deathly fate defied.

If you were dweller of this solitary town,

And heard issue of the wolf’s packs deep howl -

Beheld the grisly, menacing brood advance

With open jaws stalking about your flanks,

Fear would enthrall you and keep you cabin’d -

Until a hunter killed the haunting savage!

Then the city would erupt in hope’s joy

For the late parent of fear was destroyed

And no matter what the object of fright,

Joy’s counterpoise would bear an equal weight.

Pardon, Lord, or do my eyes play me false

Or is there adequate height to those walls?

I’m seeing false if they are of regular scale;

These imposing statuaries loom so hale!

Is framed a heaven-aspiring mountain

Shadowing the lesser crown of Vishnu¹²

Ought they not be equal in attitude….

They are equals in compared prominence

Standing intermediate you would see

Among magnitudes, their equivalency.

If the sculptures are proper in measure

Vishnu by line and scope should be higher,

Lest all forms be beneath Siva’s shadows,

There unknown, and obscured in the dark’s throes.

Or is this city, in defenses, frail?

Victory bred peace, peace sanctuary,

Sanctuaries ease; ease a lethargy!

Concern was for naught but true artistry:

Not for hoarding siege nor warlike engines,

Nor magazines, nor elaborate defenses,

As the frontier had moved far to the west

And with Gandahar sealed in alliance -

These great circuit walls became ornaments.

As the artists mimic the gods’ lineaments,

Then, given we’ve defense but in appearance:

We need gods, with their power’s inherence!

A moment of light, midst thundering skies!

After our entrance, assess defenses.

Address weaponry and our dimensions.

But before this assembly bare no frown

It’s the light of hope we bear to this town!

The fruit-laden figure of Ganesha¹³ convey,

In casual strands of lotuses¹⁴ dressed

With plenitudes of sweets embellished!

Before the portal we must make prayer

That all our future ventures work out fair!

Chandra’s adjutant arrives to the city’s gates and so relates:

Trooped with thousands of the stoutest sort:

I introduce the Prince of Magadha,¹⁵

With compliments, our Lord Chandra Gupta,

Descendant in name the empire’s founder,

First born of Bhamn, India’s undoubted heir!

Congressed with great nobles of India:

From Cedi, Kasi, Asmaka, and Vatsa

Who descend on this capital of Mathura,

To relieve beleaguered Sthenesvara.

The prince bids: open the city to him

Allowing our strengths proper admission.

Tell the foremost of this great capital

Chandra Gupta would swift convene with all

Having to do with its good governance.

He seeks an immediate audience,

That orders be received throughout his troops

With grant of food and storm-defying roofs!

The Mayor of Mathura steps before the gathering to address the herald.

Throughout the city, allow through these men!

Kindred you are, that banish our despair

We invest in you the sum of all our care!

Chandra has now ridden to the fore to address those convened on city walls.

Trooped with iron shields, staves, and sharpened swords!

Mathura! We request your great largess,

We petition to be your sometime guests.

And thank you for this, your beloved greeting,

Which blesses the Heavens with its fealty!

What parental ear, formed with filial care,

Can the plaintive tears of a prone child bear?

Does not the frightful and dolorous tone

Bore irresistible avenues to the soul!

Thence the soul is roused and animated

And corporeal members are elevated

To a sense! To perform impassioned tasks

Regardless effort, pain or offered thanks!

Or what grave wound or disease can invade -

Through apertures of a vulnerable frame,

Fore the body’s generous nutrients

Are recruited through profoundest passages

To war for health of every member

In a wild, heated, feverous manner?

We have heard the province’s bellowed cries,

Since war’s horrid note rent India’s skies,¹⁶

And felt deeply this grieving injury:

Blazing pain through our common arteries!

And to this wounded cry we now answer -

With the foremost arms we may deliver!

To counter the Hun’s miscreated tribes -

The dogs of Siva! These Empiricides!

Lift your eyes to the horizons to observe,

Our fabric and magazines of thunder:

India’s soldiers, her archers and casters,

Her engine builders and weapons makers,

Her dense arbors, metals and minerals,

And the select of her warlike animals!

We strode India’s animate gardens

Filling our arms with these warlike harvests,

Assembling India’s bounty for you,

Responsive the cry, healing to the wound!

Weak and unwilling souls we cast aside;

Like lions leaving weakling runts behind

To assure the greater strength of the pride -

Preserving the character of our line!

Here, great numbers we bring in sacrifice

To defend our sacred Indian life!

We, however, then ask of you, a dear part:

Sacrifice to us something of your heart!

We must request of you a great kindness:

We wish time for future reminiscence,

A time to enjoy the warmth of the hearth,

Time to converse in familiar mirth,

Time to calmly hear the temple’s chime,

Time to repose in the half-moon’s light,

For fields of war where we must inhabit,

Are not of peace, but her darkest opposite!

Our thanks to you again for this kindness

Thanks to you, Mayor, and to all subjects.

Sing, Mathura! In a manner exultant

For our soon return to you - triumphant!

The thousands gathered of the city and the armies let swell a clamorous cheer.

Not the saturnalia of her pelf!

Note before, an edifice for bathing!

You may in armory or citadel

Commission your troops and attendants dwell

While you, your family, and retinue,

With other provincial nobles too,

Should stay in your ready royal palace!

You may make of that your strong nucleus,

From there exert your authority’s radiants.

Ganesha needs prayerful obeisance:

Through the arc of this fortress,

Bless the steps of our progress;

Through the fire of your forces

Bless the chart of our courses;

Through the channels of your heart

Bless the potence of our arms:

Be aident with great power

In this, our now needful hour!

A gathering of devotees of Krishna sing joyfully and dance before Chandra and his retinue inside the city gates.

Let them sing joyfully, as is their way,

Nor God, nor we will allow a savage race,

To invade joys of this - Krishna’s birthplace!

End of Act One Scene Three

ACT ONE

SCENE FOUR

MADHU AND MISSIVES

Place: The principal administrative chamber of the Royal Palace of Mathura

Present: Chandra Gupta meets with the Bhramin Priest, Madhu. Later, they are joined by Gen. Ashara.

Scene: The chamber is a very large square with upright pillars ranged in geometric colonades. The aperture of the door through which Madhu enters is arched with a titular head over the archway. Before the walls of the chamber, evenly spaced and at half the height of the ceilings, are beautifully wrought sculptures of mythical and divine figures of Indian cosmology. Chandra is seated but rises at the sight of Madhu.

But the fires of bright joy are sparked by it!

Of all my father’s dear friends, the dearest,

Of favorites nearest me, the nearest!

Madhu, embrace me with all your love’s might

Demand time stop now, that we may share life!

Or halt light’s unalterable advance.

Time is the deity without an ear -

Regardless the petitioner or prayer!

How holds Bhamn, The Steadfast, whom we all love?

The nearer he hears you and Sita nigh.

But endless business has wracked his life:

With continued drain of unending strife,

Even adamant stones, of granite form,

Are by the slow assaults of ocean worn!

It were as though his mother’s rueful throes

Were prelude, at birth, to this tragic ode:

Timed by cracking drums and suffering groans

Quaking prone footholds of his sacred throne!

And you! In your youth did you know peace?

Or hear your lover rhythmically breathe?

Or were vestures of the university

Exchanged for hard molds of an armory?

You know, we are not the liberal gods.

We are come to this crisis by my advice.

And assumed you viewed our own reflection:

Your hopes clothed them in your aspiration!

It is to the credit of your spiritual stature

You assume the best of our human nature!

We offered the justice of our laws of state -

You, the spiritual mercy of your prelates;

We had hoped to foster their nobility -

We pay the cost of its callous discarding!

The Hun deceived us with shallow, false words

All the time preparing to act the scourge!

We, on our part, fell into their trap

As hope for peace lulled us to relax.

We had hoped that our hopes would be proved right

We had hoped mere hope would avoid this fight:

We lived in a mirage of delusive hopes

Until this reality arrested us by the throat!

We on our part, were willfully blind

While we dallied and strayed and played for time!

While the Hun’s appetites played upon our vice!

We must be wary of faith we place in hope,

For it bears a weighty darkness - in its shadow.

Bhamn suffers so