The whole action of the Naval Brigade reads like a fairy story. Ladysmith on the point of exhaustion, with all its troops engaged and no big guns wherewith to meet the terrific assaults of the six-inch cannon on Pepworth Hill, was almost in despair. At the eleventh hour up came the Naval Brigade under Captain the Hon. Hedworth Lambton of H.M.S. _Powerful_ with 280 Bluejackets, two 4.7 guns, and four twelve-and-a-half-pounders. Then the affair was done. It was just one, two, three, and away--for the fourth splendidly-directed shot saved the situation. In this engagement great feats of daring were accomplished, feats which have now become so general that we have almost ceased to gasp in wonder at the heroism of the "mere man" of the nineteenth century. When the regiments were forced to retire from the death-laden region of Lombard's Kop, Major Abdy of the 53rd Battery R.A., dashing across the plain under a storm of shells from a quick-firing gun, brought his battery between the enemy and the straggling mass of retreating soldiers. Horse and man rolled over, but the fire of the 53rd never slackened till the imminence of danger was past. The correspondent of the _Standard_, who was present, said: "When the moment came for the battery to fall back, the limber of one of the guns had been smashed and five horses in one team had been killed. Captain Thwaites sent back for another team and waggon limber, and brought back the disabled gun under a concentrated fire from the enemy, who were not more than four hundred yards distant. Lieutenant Higgins, of the same battery, also distinguished himself for gallantry. One of the guns was overturned in a donga. In the face of a close and heavy fire the Lieutenant succeeded in righting the gun and bringing it into a place of safety." The following is a list of killed and wounded among the officers who were engaged on Lombard's Kop:-- 13th Field Battery, R.A.--Major John Dawkins, wounded, slightly. 42nd Field Battery.--Lieutenant James Taylor M'Dougall, killed. 69th Field Battery.--Lieutenant Harold Belcher, bullet wound, forearm, severely. 1st Battalion King's Royal Rifles.--Major W. T. Myers (7th Battalion), Lieutenant H. S. Marsden, and Lieutenant T. L. Forster, killed; Lieutenant H. C. Johnson, bullet wound in shoulder, severely. 2nd Battalion King's Royal Rifles.--Major H. Buchanan Riddell, bullet wound, abdomen, severe. 1st Battalion Gloucestershire Regiment.--Captain Willcock, bullet wound, shoulder and wrist; Captain Bertram Fyffe, bullet wound, forearm and chest, severe; Captain Frederick Staynes, bullet wound, forearm, severe. Royal Army Medical Corps.--Major Edward G. Gray, killed. Natal Mounted Rifles.--Lieutenant W. Chapman, killed. THE DISASTER OF NICHOLSON'S NEK