Sophie Neville
After gaining a degree in Anthropology, Sophie went into television production directing her first documentary for Channel 4 when driving from London to Johannesburg. Having produced an INSET series for BBC Education, she set up wildlife films in Botswana and a BLUE PETER exploration of South Africa. She was filming in Kenya when her Uncle Tony first introduced her to Makorongo. He had a panic attack when a group of Japanese tourists walked behind his chair and explained himself by telling Sophie about his miraculous extraction from a Japanese prisoner of war camp. Her aunt was concerned that his extraordinary story would be lost forever and urged her to write it up, filling her in on the details. Makorongo is long-dead, but his son was keen for his story to be told and provided a few notes. Due to Operation Meeting House's bombing of Tokyo not enough documentation exists to write a biography, but Hans's family agreed it would be good to see a novel based on this untold tale from WWII.
Sophie's family moved from the Malay States to Tanganyika in 1919, with a resolve to grow pyrethrum and 'save the world from malaria'. She emigrated to southern Africa where she spent twelve years working as a wildlife artist between film contracts, travelling though twenty-one African countries. After founding an HIV/AIDs project, she became a trustee of The Waterberg Trust and is currently raising money to provide African schoolgirls with eco-sanitary pads. She married an Englishman and now lives on the south coast of the UK.
At the age of nine, MAKORONGO becomes firm friends with HANS, the son of his dad’s employers. The boys become inseparable, but Hans is partly to blame when Makorongo is dragged into a sisal shredder and damages his hand. In 1942, MAKORONGO falls in love with MERU, the daughter of his Warusha CHIEF. Needing to prove himself a warrior and find money for her bride-price he takes ‘Kingi Georgi’s shilling’ and joins 350,000 men from Africa on the Allied offensive. Meru promises she will wait for him, but Makorongo is captured by the Japanese and sent to quarry stone near Tokyo. He meets an injured American pilot called CHUCK and four East Africans who observe that the cruelty of their guards stems from the fact they are short-staffed. Makorongo spots an eagle, and is inspired to improve the camp by creating a stone garden. An OFFICER of the Third Reich arrives to see this creation. It is Hans, who identifies Makorongo by the old injury to his thumb. On learning that his boyhood friend had driven for the Red Cross, Hans insists on his repatriation but Makorongo refuses to leave without his fellow Africans. His release is only secured after one of them bravely produces evidence that guards had been pillaging Red Cross parcels. When Hans’ Jünker takes off, all five East Africans are on board. They look down to see Makorongo had used rocks to spell out the letters PoW to alert US pilots bombing Tokyo, ultimately saving Chuck and the camp from the destruction caused by Operation Meetinghouse. Makorongo returns to the farm, having received full Army pay whilst he’d been imprisoned, and is able to present the Chief with Meru’s bride-price. She is surprised to meet three Kikuyu men in K.A.R. uniforms at her wedding. Makorongo hadn’t told Hans that three of his fellow captives originated from Kenya, who in his eyes, were enemy agents.
