Warm coffee Apple doughnuts almost as good as those that his mother made. The need for sleep was not on Pete Lafitte's mind as he drove on a hilly Vermont back road on the way to the dairy Farm where -- according to the postmistress -- Merry Joliat still worked, although lately she had not been seen in town. Along the way the road was lined with trees in various shades of yellow, red, and orange. But with a soldier's sixth sense of impending danger, he was worried that in town no one had recently seen Merry.

His arrival at the dairy farm had been, it seemed, anticipated, perhaps because of his asking directions to the farm. Standing in the middle of the road, holding a rifle, blocking his entrance to the dirt driveway to the house and attached barn was a burly man in mud-encrusted overalls. It would not be uncommon to see a rifle in a Vermont farmer's hands, Pete recalled as he parked his truck below where the man stood, and walked up the hill.

"I'm looking for Merry Joliat," he said.

"Merry is no longer here" was the reply. At the sound of his voice, the man with the rifle was joined by two more large unfriendly-looking men. The odds were not good.

Pete drove back down the hill to where on the way up he had spotted a side road. He turned down this side road. Battlefield instinct told him to take a look around the back of the farmhouse, where Merry had told him the Land Girl barracks were located. He parked his truck by the roadside, in a place where it was not visible from either the farmhouse or the main road.