European sailor hurried back to tell story (7)
I believe the answer is:
narrate
'tell story' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'european sailor hurried back' is the wordplay.
'european' becomes 'e' (abbreviation e.g. EU).
'sailor' becomes 'tar' (tar is a kind of sailor).
'hurried' becomes 'ran' (running is a kind of hurrying).
'back' is a reversal indicator.
'e'+'tar'+'ran'='etarran'
'etarran' back-to-front is 'NARRATE'.
'to' is the link.
(Other definitions for narrate that I've seen before include "Set forth" , "Report; tell" , "Give a detailed account" , "Give (film) commentary" , "recount events" .)