English sailor hurried over to tell the story (7)
I believe the answer is:
narrate
'tell the story' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'english sailor hurried over' is the wordplay.
'english' becomes 'e' (abbreviation).
'sailor' becomes 'tar' (tar is a kind of sailor).
'hurried' becomes 'ran' (running is a kind of hurrying).
'over' says the letters should be written in reverse.
'e'+'tar'+'ran'='etarran'
'etarran' back-to-front is 'NARRATE'.
'to' is the link.
(Other definitions for narrate that I've seen before include "Read" , "Tell story,recount" , "'Recount, tell (7)'" , "Report; tell" , "Relay" .)