Brave, arrives in West Indies ahead of soldiers (7)
I believe the answer is:
warrior
'brave' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'arrives in west indies ahead of soldiers' is the wordplay.
'arrives' becomes 'arr' (I've seen this in other clues).
'in' indicates putting letters inside.
'west indies' becomes 'wi'.
'ahead of' says to put letters next to each other (I've seen this in other clues).
'soldiers' becomes 'or' (Other Rank).
'arr' placed inside 'wi' is 'warri'.
'warri'+'or'='WARRIOR'
(Other definitions for warrior that I've seen before include "One contending" , "Military man" , "A man mighty in battle" , "A famous fighter, noble in battle" , "Fighting soldier" .)