Living Silver 



the human hand that held it uptilted in an alien element. When 

 he had first witnessed this ordinary struggle, Jan had been 

 alarmed. The first time he had engaged in it he had been bitten. 

 A sudden terror of the life of the strange beast in his hand had 

 overcome him so that his grip had slackened and the lobster, in 

 its turn, had held his hand. The pain had been excruciating. He 

 had tried to pull his manacled thumb away, but Frank had yelled : 

 'Don't pull. Just hold its claw out straight, so that it can't get 

 the other one to you.' So Frank had held the lobster, and the 

 lobster held Jan, and all three were fastened in a strenuous still- 

 ness. The free claw of the shellfish cavorted with slow menaces 

 within half an inch of the agony that seemed to have spread itself 

 over the whole volume of his trapped hand. Occasionally Frank 

 would whisk the new danger away, clouting it, but not too hard, 

 with a swift blow. Always it came back again, and the pain was 

 beginning to surge into Jan's arm. He remembered wondering 

 if the Nazis had ever used live lobsters as an instrument of torture. 

 This pain could go on forever. It would not kill him. He noticed 

 a movement in the claw that held him. 'Quick', shouted Frank, 

 and Jan pulled and his thumb was free. Frank then explained 

 how impossible it was to escape the grip of a lobster without 

 either killing the beast or pulling out its claw at the root, four 

 joints away. Unless, of course, one was patient and waited until 

 the animal tried to change its hold. The scissors, the pincers, the 

 jaws of its claws would loosen for a moment or two, long enough 

 for a man to react. If he did not take that chance then the lobster 

 had to be killed, for it would not try a second time to find a more 

 effective grip, and it would die before it let go of a piece of 

 potential prey. Or its whole leg had to be torn out and it might 

 as well be dead for all the money it would then be worth. 



Jan supposed that Frank too must have had the worst of it at 

 some time, but he could never find any hint of such opaque 

 memories in the severe lack of expression with which he ex- 

 tracted lobsters from the creels. As far as Frank's looks could 

 tell him, a lobster was no more dangerous than a damp and rotten 



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