It would have been April and we passed through the Bab el Mandeb sound from the Gulf of Aden and entered the Red Sea in the 12 to 4 afternoon watch (our watch) bound back to Milford Haven in Wales from Das Island in the Arabian Gulf loaded with Crude oil for the refinery at Llandarcy. I came on watch again at Midnight (12 to 4 am as well as 12 to 4 pm on a 3 watch ship) and, as I was wheelman, went straight to the bridge for my trick at the wheel. It was pitch dark, with only the light from the binnacle shining up onto the deckhead of the wheelhouse and faintly lighting the face of the wheelman from the other watch, The mate grunts from the corner of the wheelhouse at the 2nd mate as he comes up from below, " leave her on autopilot watch the radar, there is nothing within 20 miles, keep the wheelman handy" and recited the course and left, I receive the course from my oppo and repeat it aloud to him and the 2nd mate and he repeats to the 2nd mate then goes down the internal companionway, as he passes me he whispers, "take a look astern when you get off" I say "OK" and spend a really boring hour leaning against the bulkhead as the ship steered herself at about 20 knots up the Red Sea. We had a thousand or so miles to go to the Suez Canal about 3 days away.
At the end of the hour the lookout came down from the Monkey island above the wheelhouse, his eyes now dark conditioned and relieved me at the wheel, I walked out on to the wing of the bridge, asked the 2nd mate if he wanted anything, tea, coffee? He said no, so I was now Reserve and "stand by man", so I set off aft along the boat deck, around the funnel. At the the after end of the boat deck was a large clear pace stretching aft about 30 feet and a handrail almost the full beam of the ship between the companionways each side that dropped down to the poop and the mooring winches etc, as I got closer to the handrail I saw the most wondrous sight.
It was the dark of the moon and under a canopy of the most incredible diamond bright stars was a sea, like a mirror of obsidian, dead flat and black as carbon, and laid across this mirror as if being towed was a pair of dead straight, parallel, green phosphorescent tracks of the twin screws of the ship as they churned up the minute sea creatures. These tracks stretched visible (or seemed to stretch) for several miles behind us, as if laid down by a ruler and as if we were travelling across a great flat plain on railway tracks.
It was a sight to take ones breath away, and it did mine, it was mentioned to the watch at each watch change and even hardened old sea dogs went aft at the end of their trick to look at the incredible sight and be moved by it.