On the way back from Habay we picked up the boyfriend at Marbehan station and then got happily lost in the beautiful countryside, certain that we would pick up a road to Brussels sooner or later. So it was that we came to Rossignol and to two immensely touching French First World War cemeteries tucked away in the middle of the forest, Orée de la Forët and Plateau. The former is the last resting place of no less than 2,388 unknown soldiers. The latter is beautified by the trees that grow among the graves (picture). This is true La Vie et Rien d’Autre territory: several of the tombs bear the legend ’empty’ – presumably after their remains were exhumed and repatriated. The men in these cemeteries – together with many more German and French soldiers whose remains have since been repatriated or gathered elsewhere – died in a single day, 22 August 1914, in fighting around Rossignol. Today, the forest is idyllically, serenely beautiful, rendering the silent presence of so many war dead poignantly incongruous.