Jan Andersen is the author of Searching For Wouter: The Story of Australia’s First White Settler.  His second novel, To Kill or Not to Kill, is due for release in early 2027. Jan Andersen studied Arts/Law at Monash University (Melbourne) and has a Masters in Creative Writing from Macquarie University (Sydney). You can sign up to get updates about their writing here.

  In 2006, whilst visiting the WA Shipwrecks Museum in Fremantle, Western Australia, I inadvertently placed my hands upon the ancient timbers of the hull of the Dutch retourship, The Batavia. This is arguably one of the most notorious of all the Dutch shipwrecks along the coast of Australia. Shipwrecked on the reef, a hour’s sail from Geraldton, The Batavia struck reef in the winter of 1629. In the ensuing three months, while waiting for a rescue ship, mutineers raped and murdered 150 people, including children.

  My hotel was a short walk from the museum, situated right on the boat harbour, and my window opened out onto the vast Indian Ocean, the place of many shipwrecks just like the Batavia. The moon was full, and it cast it’s silvery pathy along the ocean into my window. That night I had a nightmare. I dreamed there was an evil force, hidden, trying to remain secret, behind a large wooden door, behind which untold attrocities were happening. I awoke in a sweat and went into the bathroom. It was then I saw what others later jokingly described as a stigmata on my left forehead, just over the eyebrow. A browny-red mark, the shape of a crucifix, had appeared. My initial remark, ‘What the hell?’ In the morning it was more pronounced, and earned it’s fanciful name from my wife.

  I am not prone to nightmares. And I am definitely not prone to religious phenomena.

  I didn’t realise until later that I had connected with a recorded memory, embedded in those ancient timbers of The Batavia. Today, I reaslise that memory can be recorded in many ways. Just as we record photos on film, or sounds and images on our silicon chips, so can memory be recorded in many places. In walls of a house, for example. We glimpse or feel something. This memory is recorded in places where strong emotional events have occurred. In the walls of houses (thus the “haunted house”) and within the timbers of old ships.

  The story of The Batavia would not leave me alone. I had never heard of it before that chance encounter in 2006. I slowly began sourcing every available book and article on the subject, some of them privately printed. The story had hold of me. For it was here I learned that a 24 year-old soldier, Wouter Loos, was set ashore at Hutt River, thereby becoming Australia’s first white settler.

  Years later, in 2017, I started writing. As soon as I began, I remembered something long forgotten. I forgot that I wrote a novella at the age of 13. It was a vampire story. Then at age 16 I won a short story competition. Then I stopped writing. I decided to be sensible. I went to university to study Arts/Law. In 2017 I finally picked up my pen once more.....(continued in the blog section)