The feather merchants

the long version

"As he leaves the peace and security of the air base, Sgt. Dan Miller is just a happy soldier going home on furlough. But he is ambushed by an advance patrol of feather merchants as he gets off the train in Minneapolis. They drive him home on black-market gas, gorge him on hoarded food, sir him down at a suspiciously new deluxe radio to hear the omniscient A. K. Hockfleisch's war-news broadcast. But the block-buster that completely shatters his illusions about the privations of his people comes from the most desirable feather merchant of them all, lovely Estherlee McCracken. She says that Sgt. Dan is a desk soldier and the hell with him"--Amazon.com