India was already in chaos, and not just because of the impending Chinese invasion. The millions of people forcibly transported from Australia and New Zealand to the Indian subcontinent were the biggest headache for the British Indian authorities.

The Chinese method of transporting people was quite brutal. In several transport operations, they would first seize an Indian port and then start driving people onto the shore. Besides delivering hundreds of thousands of people, China very considerately provided enough military compressed biscuits and canned food for a month, as well as a large number of large plastic barrels filled with drinking water. Dumping these people on the beach without food or clothing would have been no different from a massacre.

Of course, the British side really didn't want to accept these Australians and New Zealanders. Accepting this group of people would definitely cause great chaos in the local area of India. China's tough approach left Britain with no way to "refuse". Fortunately, the average life expectancy in these times was not high, and the sanitary conditions in Australia were relatively limited, so there were few old men and women in their seventies or eighties even among the old, weak, women, and children.

It was obviously inappropriate to send all these people back to the British mainland. The British authorities in India could only make full use of this manpower. For example, the army of the British colonial authorities could conscript a large number of young people from among them. Those from Australia who were educated could also do clerical work in British colonial institutions. Millions of people might not be able to change the demographic composition of India, but they could strengthen the power of the British colonial authorities.

However, there are gains and losses. The British felt that they were forced to solve the problem of these white people. Although India had many industrial sectors, it was actually still an agricultural country, and Australia and New Zealand could not be considered industrial countries either. Without industry, there were not so many job opportunities. Britain was different from the People's Party. After the People's Party educated a large number of students back then, they scattered them all to the countryside, starting with infrastructure construction and the popularization of agricultural technology. As service units for industry nurturing agriculture, they could also absorb a large amount of labor. As colonizers, Britain could never make such a move.

There were only so many positions in government departments, almost one person for one slot. Most factories were privately owned, and entering a factory meant being cruelly exploited. Although the Australians without industrial experience were white, their efficiency after being sent into the factory was still not higher than that of the Indian overseers who had experience in the factory. Capitalists had no interest in this either.

In the final analysis, as an agricultural country, everyone had to rely on the land to scrape out a living. Britain could not find jobs for so many people out of thin air.

In the famous *The Thorn Birds* of later generations, a story was recorded.

...Jim (the protagonist's father) finally got a job as a policeman in a small seaside town. Although the salary was not high, in order to support his wife and three children, he had to work here. Since his hometown in Australia was also by the sea, the warm waters of the Indian Ocean often reminded Jim of the azure sea surface of Australia. At that time, Jim would take his whole family to the islands for a vacation every year during the off-season for travel in the eastern islands.

The small villa on the island was a three-room house on one floor, occupying a stretch of white sandy beach all to itself. Two steep mountain peaks extending into the sea flanked the beach, and the road ended here. The interior of the house was very simple but comfortable. The island generated its own electricity, so there was a small electric refrigerator, electric lights, a telephone that the owner had promised, and even a radio. The toilet was flush-style, and there was fresh water in the bathroom; there were more comfortable and practical modern facilities than in Drogheda and Gillanbone; Meggie thought with amusement. It was obvious at a glance that most of the patrons came from Sydney or Melbourne. They were very accustomed to living a civilized life and could not leave these things.

There was a glass-bottomed boat at the pier on the beach. Every time they went out to sea, looking through the glass bottom at the myriad forms, exquisite and beautiful, brittle and fragile world below was like buying a ticket to enter a refreshing and strange planet. Various exquisite and elegant creatures floated in the refreshing and pleasant seawater. She found that the colors of living coral were not as bright and dazzling as those displayed as gifts on shop counters. They were pale pink, beige, and blue-gray. Around every spherical part and branch, there shimmered an indescribably wonderful iridescent color, just like a clear glow. The edges of large sea anemones, 12 inches wide, fluttered with blue, red, orange, or purple tentacles; white sea slugs brought back to the trough were as big as stones, teasing the careless observers. Once, a smooth, gray little shark swam silently below them, as if it were fixed there.

However, this small town by the Indian Ocean did not have the resort of the Australian Coral Sea. Jim's family of five had to squeeze into a house with only two rooms. This was already very good treatment. Many female immigrants without jobs had to sell their bodies to the white people of the colony, or even had to sell their bodies to rich Indians to make a living.

The war in Australia was over, and a new war was constantly approaching India. All policemen had to participate in the war. Even in this small town, it was the same. The war in Australia seemed like yesterday to Jim. All Australians learned that the Chinese were going to invade Australia, and all men were incorporated into the militia. Everyone was filled with abundant patriotic enthusiasm, as well as deep hatred and hostility towards the Chinese. After these troops went to the battlefield, there was no news of them. Then came the Chinese encirclement of every city and farm. This was a completely asymmetrical war. For every shot an Australian fired, China would return a hundred shots. Unless one raised their hands to surrender and walked into the Chinese sight, the battle would continue without pause until one side was dead.

Although Jim wanted to forget that past completely, the bullets sweeping the buildings like a storm during the battle, and the fear of walking unarmed into the Chinese firing range when surrendering, were deeply etched in Jim's memory and could not be dissipated.

In order to be able to contact as soon as possible, this small town without telephone or wired telegraph was equipped with bicycles. Everyone in the police station was told that if the Chinese attacked and news needed to be transmitted, someone must ride a bicycle to transmit intelligence to the next town.

However, three days after the news was passed to every officer, the bicycle was lost. The town was not big, and it should have been easy to find out who stole the bicycle. But no matter how they searched, the bicycle could not be found.

Another bicycle was provided, and it was soon lost again.

After the third bicycle was lost, the entire police station fell into panic. A theft gang targeting the police station, and one capable of transporting bicycles to other places to dispose of the stolen goods. Such a thing had never happened in this small town!

All British and Indians who could enter and leave the town were subjected to strict investigation. The prison was stuffed with many suspects. Sellers passing through the town were wanted in other places.

Jim was also filled with panic in his heart. If the Chinese killing their way into India was certainly a great panic, the theft gang with magical powers in front of them was the greatest threat.

After the fourth bicycle was assigned to the police station, it was locked firmly to a pillar with a large iron chain. There was no movement for several days in a row, and the police station finally breathed a sigh of relief. It seemed that this bicycle should be safe.

But one day Jim forgot something at the police station. When he rushed back to get it before dawn, he found a figure pushing the bicycle out of the back door of the police station in the quiet darkness before dawn.

Jim was not a very bold man. He saw that the figure's back was quite familiar; it turned out to be the Indian deputy chief of the police station. After thinking it over, Jim decided to secretly follow the deputy chief to see what he was preparing to do.

There was no meeting with a gang, nor was there anyone to meet him. The Indian deputy chief of the police station just rode the bicycle alone to the seaside. In the dawn's light, Jim, following fearfully behind, saw the Indian deputy chief arrive at the edge of the cliff, lift the bicycle high, and throw it off the cliff.

In Jim's impression, the deputy chief was a yes-man. He had neither outstanding ability nor special merits. Simply because he was of high birth locally, he was able to get the position of deputy chief. During the time Jim knew the deputy chief, he had never seen the deputy chief catch a thief, nor had he seen the deputy chief solve any case. He always looked a bit dull, with the subservience of an Indian in front of the British.

It was such a person who dared to commit such a crime again and again.

Jim did not dare to report the deputy chief. The difference in official position between the two was too great. Jim was just a very ordinary, discriminated-against Australian white man, while the other party was a deputy chief after all. Jim slipped away secretly.

What followed was, of course, the loss of the bicycle again, which shook the entire police station. Since then, the police station dared not equip bicycles anymore. Searches became more severe. Because the iron chain locking the bicycle was sawed in two, what kind of great thief would dare to do this?

Jim secretly checked the iron chain. The lock was still that lock, but the iron chain just looked very much like the original iron chain; it was actually not the same one. Jim then understood why there was such a gap of several days in this loss. To get a similar iron chain, saw it in half, and arrange the time for the crime, some preparation time was needed.

Although the case was clear, Jim completely did not understand why the deputy chief went to such great lengths to do this. Until Jim thought of one thing: this bicycle was to be used to transmit news when the Chinese attacked India. That deputy chief obviously did not want this news to be transmitted too quickly.

After thinking of this, Jim no longer wanted to stay in India. Just at this time, the United States was willing to provide shipping services to Britain to help the British transport Australians and New Zealanders in India to Canada. Jim tried every means, got boat tickets, and took his whole family on the journey to Canada.

When the ship passed the coast of India, although he knew that the cliff by the sea was not the cliff of the Indian town where he had been, Jim still seemed to see the man in the British Indian police uniform in the afterglow of the setting sun, lifting the bicycle high and throwing it into the sea.

This impression would also remain in Jim's mind for a long time. Looking at the familiar white faces around him, Jim couldn't help but hug his wife and children. No matter how many hardships lay ahead, Jim was no longer afraid. He was on a ship of white people, going to a country of white people. Even if Canada was a place Jim had never been to, Jim knew that he was finally going home!