Every evening at 8pm, traffic on the road through the Menin Gate stops. The police halt the cars. Four buglers from the Last Post Association raise their instruments and play — as they have every evening since 11 November 1929 — in memory of the soldiers who passed under this gate on their way to the front and never came back.
The gate itself is a triumphal arch straddling the road on the eastern edge of the town. Its walls are covered, every panel of them, with the names of 54,896 Commonwealth soldiers killed in the Ypres Salient who have no known grave. These are not all the missing — there were too many names to fit — but they represent the scale of what the Salient consumed. Field Marshal Lord Plumer, at the dedication in 1927, tried to explain: "Here are the names of those who died and have no known grave. They are not missing; they are here."
The ceremony lasts about ten minutes. Come early to find a good position — the gate fills quickly on summer evenings and weekends. Afterwards, many people remain for a while, reading the names.