 As this occurred, another Zulu force swept on to the hospital and northwestern wall.Those British on the barricades — including Dalton and Bromhead — were soon engaged in fierce hand-to-hand fighting.The British wall was too high for the Zulus to scale, so they resorted to crouching under the wall, trying to get hold of the defenders' Martini–Henry rifles, slashing at British soldiers with assegais or firing their weapons through the wall.