The Paper Dragon (51 page)

" '… mud spattering from the wheels, as the jeep swerved into the compound and ground to a stop. Colman saw two officers on the front seat of the jeep, one of whom he recognized as Captain Benjamin. The other man was tall and lean, wearing his hair cropped close to his head in a boyish crewcut. Colman reached into his blouse and took out his glasses, which he perched on his nose. Peering through them owlishly, he studied the new officer with a deliberate scrutiny.' And following that," Brackman said, "there's a detailed description of Lieutenant Cooper. Is that the passage?"

"That's the passage," Driscoll said.

"What sort of glasses does Coleman take out of his pocket?"

"I don't think I understand you," Driscoll said.

"Are they the sort of glasses, for example, that Mr. Willow has been wearing in this courtroom every day this week?"

"No."

"Are they reading glasses?"

"I never specifically labeled them. If anything, they would be reading glasses, yes. Coleman only wears them occasionally."

"Does he in fact wear them anywhere else in the book?"

"I don't think so."

"This is the only place in the book where you specifically describe Colman as wearing eyeglasses?"

"Yes."

"In just this one paragraph which is… let me see… eight lines long. That's the only mention in the entire book."

"Yes."

"Mr. Driscoll, do you recall a character in your book called Major Catharine Astor?"

"I do."

"And who is also called Major Catastrophe by Lieutenant Cooper and Jan Reardon?"

"Yes."

"Is this another of your literary puns?"

"Yes, an affectionate one."

"How would you describe Major Astor, or Major Catastrophe as she is affectionately called?"

"She's a woman in her late fifties, and she's been a nurse for perhaps fifteen years or so. Irish background, rather tall and big-boned, ample-breasted, and… big feet, she has big feet. She's constantly predicting doom, which is how she earns her nickname. She carries a note from the lieutenant to Jan in one scene."

"I ask you now if you remember a character in
Catchpole
called Captain Sykes?"

"I do."

"Do you remember that she is an Army nurse?"

"Yes."

"Do you remember how old she is supposed to be?"

"No."

"Will you turn to the page immediately following the title page of Mr. Constantine's play, the page title 'Cast in Order of Appearance,' and will you look down that page to the description of Captain Sykes? Have you got it?"

"Yes, I have."

"Do you see her age there?"

"I do."

"What is the age?"

"Fifty-two."

"Do you recall why Captain Sykes joined the Medical Corp?"

"Yes."

"Would you tell us, please?"

"She enlisted after the death of her husband."

"Let's get back to your character, shall we? Major Catastrophe. How does she happen to be in Korea?"

"She is sent there."

"Is it not true that she becomes a nurse after her husband dies?"

"Oh, boy," Driscoll said.

"I beg your pardon?"

"Are you going to claim…"

"Please answer the question, Mr. Driscoll."

"Yes, I'll be very happy to answer the question," Driscoll said angrily, "if I may be permitted briefly to go into the backgrounds of these two characters."

"Briefly, but not with as much volume, I hope," McIntyre said.

"I'm sorry."

"We're none of us deaf," McIntyre said, "Go on, go on."

"The senior nurse in my book, Major Astor, has been in the Army since 1935. She joins several years after her husband passes away, of natural causes, in his own bed. There is no indication that she enlists for patriotic reasons or for any reason other than to give herself a worthwhile occupation. The nurse in the play
Catchpole
is a woman who left nursing to get married. Her husband is a doctor who is killed in action in a bombing attack on a London airfield. To avenge his death, she joins the Medical Corps and is ironically sent to the Pacific where the enemy are the Japanese rather than the Germans. She is pictured as a rather bitter woman who strongly resents the developing love affair between Mr. Constantine's principal characters. I don't see any similarity between these two women, aside from the fact that they are both nurses in the same general age bracket."

"Is it not true," Brackman asked, "that Captain Sykes in
Catchpole
helps Diane Foster to arrange a rendezvous with Lieutenant Mason?"

"No, it is not true. She makes it extremely difficult for the pair to meet."

"Does she not deliberately leave them alone together one night?"

"She does not do it deliberately. One of Mason's friends gets her drunk and puts her to sleep in a weapons carrier. It's a comic scene in the play."

"Where is this scene, Mr. Driscoll?"

"In the second act someplace."

"Do you recall whether or not Captain Sykes has a nickname?"

"Yes, I think she does. They call her 'Big Red.' "

"Why do they call her that?"

"Because she has flaming-red hair."

"Is this fact ever mentioned?"

"Yes, when Mason's friend dumps her into the weapons carrier, he puts his Eisenhower jacket over her head because he's afraid someone will spot the red hair."

"What color hair does
your
nurse have?"

"Brown."

"You're talking about Major Astor now?"

"Yes."

"Does Major Astor deliver a note to Jan Reardon in your novel?"

"Yes, she does. Arranging a meeting with the lieutenant."

"Doesn't Captain Sykes in
Catchpole
also deliver a note to someone?"

"No."

"Isn't there a scene with the colonel where…"

"That isn't a note."

"What is it?"

"She shows him his medical record."

"Your Honor," Willow said, rising, "I do not see where this is going."

There was a peculiar note of warning in his voice, and whereas he had addressed the words to McIntyre, Driscoll had the certain feeling he was trying to communicate something, was objecting not to Brackman's questions but rather to his own answers. Confused, aware of the warning but unable to ascertain what he was doing wrong, he stared at Willow in puzzlement, and suddenly his hands began to shake.

"We are attempting to explore the similarities, your Honor," Brackman said. "That is all."

Brackman's explanation sounded reasonable enough, and yet Driscoll detected a note of confidence that had not been there several moments ago when he could barely stutter his way through a sentence. He tried to understand what had happened between then and now, but he could find no clue, and McIntyre's next words left him with a curiously unsettled feeling, as though he were on treacherous ground that was giving away beneath his feet, inch by crumbling inch.

"I find this all to the point," McIntyre said. "Proceed, Mr. Brackman."

"Mr. Driscoll, you have testified that you met with your erstwhile commanding officer, Colonel Hamilton, in order to get some information from him about specific scenes in your book."

"Yes."

"Some of this information was about dissembling a rifle, is that right?"

"Yes, I wanted the exact language describing the operation."

"You did not possess any books that might have given you this information?"

"No."

"Weren't you issued any such books when you were in the service?"

"Yes."

"Did you later discard them?"

"I must have."

"So you had to go to Colonel Hamilton for the information."

"I went to the library first, but I couldn't find it there. Nor could I find a breakdown of the Chinese troop concentrations, or some of the other information I needed."

"Like what?"

"Like some of the actual code names used in the Ch'ongch'on River operations."

"Which Colonel Hamilton supplied."

"Yes. This was no longer classified material."

"I understand that, nor am I intending to impugn a dead man's loyalty. In Officer Candidate School, Mr. Driscoll, you took a great many courses, did you not?"

"I did."

"And I assume you took notes in these courses."

"In most of them. In some courses, for security reasons, we were not permitted—"

"Yes, I understand that. But you
did
take notes in most of the courses?"

"Yes."

"Do you still have those notes?"

"No, of course not."

"When you were released from the Army, Mr. Driscoll, you attended N.Y.U., I believe you said, and you took some courses in creative writing."

"I took most of the writing courses the school had to offer."

"Did you take notes in those courses?"

"Yes."

"Do you still have those notes?"

"No."

"Your Honor," Willow said, "again I must ask…"

"It will become clear, Mr. Willow," Brackman answered.

"I hope so," McIntyre said.

"You have testified that you wrote several short stories while you were a student at N.Y.U. Did you make carbon copies of those stories?"

"Yes."

"Do you still have those carbons?"

"No."

"Do you generally save things?"

"Important things."

"You did not save any of your Army notes, or your college notes, or carbon copies of your short-story attempts."

"I did not think they were good enough."

"The stories?"

"Yes."

"So you discarded the carbons?"

"
And
the stories, too."

"So it would seem that there are some things you do
not
consider important enough to save."

"Yes."

"Yet you did feel it important to save every bit of material, every letter, every note you ever made concerning the novel
The Paper Dragon
."

"Not
all
the material."

"The last document this court admitted was marked 'Exhibit S in evidence,' which means nineteen documents were submitted to this Court — letters to your agent, and letters to Mitchell-Campbell, and a letter to Colonel Hamilton, and notes you took at your meeting with him, and outlines, and the original drawing of your map, you saved all these things pertaining to
The Paper Dragon
, all of these things that purport to show the independent creation of the novel, isn't that so, Mr. Driscoll?"

"That was my working procedure."

"
What
was your working procedure?"

"I had a box full of typing paper. I took the cover off that box and put it on one side of my typewriter, and whenever I pulled a completed page out of the machine, I put it into the empty lid of the box."

"What does this have to do with your letters and notes?"

"When the book was completed, I put all the research material and information in the same box containing the carbon copy."

"Your letters as well?"

"No, I kept those in a separate file."

"Do you keep carbon copies of all your letters?"

"Yes. Would you like me to bring them in?"

"I don't think that will be necessary. Do you have a good memory, Mr. Driscoll?"

"I think so."

"Why did you meet with Colonel Hamilton?"

"To check certain factual aspects of the novel."

"Such as the disassembling of a rifle?"

"Yes."

"How many times, offhand, would you say you stripped a rifle while you were in the Army?"

"I don't recall."

"Did you perform the operation many times, or just a few times?"

"Many, I would say."

"Yet you could not remember the steps, and you had to—"

"I didn't say I couldn't remember them. I wanted the exact language because the success of the scene depended on the language in it."

"You would not trust your memory."

"That's right."

"So you went to Colonel Hamilton for the sake of authenticity."

"Yes."

"Even though you have a very good memory."

"I think I do. But I could not be expected to remember the technical language describing—"

"Yes, yes, I understand that. How many times would you say you stripped a rifle? Ten times perhaps?"

"Perhaps."

"Twenty?"

"Perhaps."

"More than twenty?"

"Yes, many times more."

"You stripped a rifle more than twenty times,
many
times more, but you could not remember the steps in detail when it came time to write about them."

"I could not remember the
language
."

"Yet you read the play
Catchpole
only once last month, and you can remember in detail and with absolute accuracy some of the more obscure aspects of the play."

"I read the play more than once."

"How many times did you read it?"

"Five or six times."

"Not more than twenty times?"

"No."

"You could not remember an operation you performed more than twenty times, but you could remember details of a play you read only five or six times."

"I could not remember the
language
. How many times must I repeat that?"

"You thought this rifle scene was important enough to seek information about, didn't you?"

"Yes."

"And you thought it important enough to
keep
the notes you made on it."

"Yes. But only as part of all the other material I kept. Material pertaining to the book."

"Why did you keep this material?"

"I don't know. I save some things, and others I throw away."

"What else have you saved?"

"Scraps of everything."

"What kind of scraps?"

"Anything I think is important."

"Did you save your notebooks from your student days at Pratt Institute?"

"Some of them."

"Why? Were they important?"

"Yes. Some of them."

"And obviously the complicated process of writing your novel was also important, so important that we have a detailed step-by-step record of its creation. Do you have any notes concerning the 105th Division, Mr. Driscoll?"

"No."