It was Knowledge who noticed it. I could see him through the thick fog as he was standing just in front of me. Behind his horn-rimmed spectacles I could make out a look of urgent wonder.

“Put your fakes out, yow lot!” he shouted quickly, turning back across the Tottenham marshes.

“Get lost, Knowledge,” was the mildest comment I heard. I struck a Swan Vestas and lit the Navy Cut Wes Gibbs had given me before he’d disappeared.

“Perton’s gone,” called a voice some yards to my right.

“Tommy Knight’s gone,” called another, to my left.

“Put your cigarettes out!” said Knowledge, more urgently this time.

“Tanner’s gone,” called a voice behind me. Then another, near to it, announced that Elijah Phelps was missing.

Knowledge would have been jumping up and down if he could. None of us could. “Listen to me, you wazzocks! This… thing…”

“The monster,” said Wes Gibbs.

“The Marsh Thing,” said Nobby Clarke.

“Steve!” said Jack Dudley, lighting a Senior Service.

“Whatever you want to call it…,” said Knowledge. He hadn’t taken to any of the names the boys had come up with for the cloudy entity that was impeding our progress across the Marshes towards what we hoped was the football ground. It was to be Tottenham Hotspur’s debut league fixture, a new footballing frontier. Knowledge had used the novel and very grand public library in Snow Hill to research the whereabouts of the club, but his planned route, down the Lea River by barge, had brought us to this strange impasse. Though our arms could move to light cigarettes, check pocketwatches and reset flat caps upon our heads, our legs were immobile, as stiff and heavy as tree trunks on the soggy ground.

“Knocker Bradley’s gone,” called a voice.

“Please, you lot,” said Knowledge, “The smoke from your fakes is feeding it.”

“Feeding what? The Cloudmama?”

It could be you next!

“Whatever you want to call it. Stop smoking, please. It could be you next!”

“Just let me finish this one,” said Henry Hickinbottom.

“Gordon Knowles has gone,” said a voice behind me.

“What about the Marshmist?” asked another.

“It’s hardly mist.”

“What about ‘Bogfog’?”

I dropped the nub of my Navy Cut onto the groud; it hit moisture and released a list wisp of smoke which disappeared immediately. Yes, disappeared, rather than disippating, as though something had sucked it up.

“Listen to Knowledge,” I called out, “He might be on to something.”

I checked my watch: half past two. A dog barked somewhere – south I figured. Through the silence that followed came a happier, bubblier, more summery sound.

Knowledge wiped his spectacles with his handkerchief and replaced them on his nose. “That’s a skylark,” he said, “And that’s another one.”

Soon the air was filled with birdsong, and then birds themselves appeared through the mist, circling broadly around us, lifting and dipping merrily, more each time as their numbers increased and the mist dispersed. Whether the dispersal of ‘Bogfog’ alias ‘Cloudmama’ alias ‘Marsh Thing’ alias ‘Steve’ was down to the birds, or to our stopping smoking, was a matter of dispute in the White Hart, with Knowledge being very much in the minority. Then he switched topic.

“You know, I suppose you could say it’s ironic,” he said, taking a long quaff of Charrington’s Pale Ale, “The White Hart was the symbol of Richard II, whom Harry Hotspur actually betrayed.”

You could always learn something from Knowledge, but the attention of most of the chaps didn’t usually extend to the end of his stories, and a detailed description of the Battle of Shrewsbury was interrupted by rumours about the line-ups and a dash pitchside. It was a memorable league debut for the Spurs, a forgettable afternoon for the Wolves, and a mysterious afternoon on the Tottenham Marshes. Knocker Bradley, Tommy Knight and the rest reappeared at the ground, with no recollection of the fog at all and having chosen the George and Vulture for their pre-match drinks instead.