Townshend asked that Nixon send all of the British soldiers working as policemen, clerks and batmen in Basra up to the front to replace the Indian Muslims Townshend had sent away from the front, a request that Nixon refused. Relations between Nixon and Townshend were extremely poor and Nixon went out of his way to make things difficult for Townshend. By this time, Townshend had advanced over 500 miles up the Tigris and he was at the end of a long and tenuous supply line that was stretched more and more as he continued way up the river. Supplies from Basra were brought up in "mahelas", a type of Arab sailing boat with enormous sails that moved very slowly at the best of times. A further problem for the Anglo-Indian forces was the lack of hospital ships for the treatment of the wounded and sick and by the autumn of 1915, illness had incapacitated much of the Anglo-Indian forces.