But unfortunately the statement made at Union, where the field railway built from Monida for the transport service terminated, was correct. Just as in most European armies, the number of shells provided was out of all proportion to the shrapnel, and the supply of shells was consequently low at all times. Besides, most of the ammunition-motors had been put out of commission early in the game. The advantage of higher speed possessed by the automobiles was more than offset by their greater conspicuousness the moment they came within range of the enemy's guns. The clouds of dust which they threw up at once showed the enemy in which direction they were going, and as they were obliged to keep to the main road, the Japanese had only to make a target of the highway and do a little figuring to make short work of these modern vehicles. The great number of wrecked motor cars strewn along the road proved rather conclusively that the horse has not yet outlived its usefulness in modern warfare. The officers, including the generals, had willingly dispensed with such a dangerous mode of locomotion after the first fatal experiences, for the staring fiery eyes of the motor betrayed its whereabouts by night, and the clouds of dust betrayed it by day. The moment an auto came puffing along, the enemy's shots began to fall to the right and left of it, and it was only natural, therefore, that the horse came into its own again, both because the rider was not bound to the main road and because he did not offer such a conspicuous target for the enemy's shots. Towards noon the Japanese batteries entrenched before Hilgard began bombarding the 28th Regiment with shrapnel. Colonel Katterfeld therefore ordered half his men to seek protection under the stands. The howling and crashing of the bursting shrapnel of course had its effect on those troops who were here under fire for the first time. But the shrapnel bullets rained on the wooden roofs without being able to penetrate them, and after half an hour this fact imbued the men in their retreats with a certain feeling of security. The enemy soon stopped this ineffective fire from his field-guns, however, and on the basis of careful observations made from a captive balloon behind Hilgard, the Japanese began using explosive shells in place of the shrapnel.