Tears boldly at first into emergency! (4)
I believe the answer is:
sobs
'tears' is the definition.
'boldly at first into emergency' is the wordplay.
'at first' says to take the initial letters.
'into' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'emergency' becomes 'sos'.
The initial letter of 'boldly' is 'b'.
'b' put into 'sos' is 'SOBS'.
(Other definitions for sobs that I've seen before include "Is unhappy" , "cries uncontrollably" , "Weeps heavily for boss" , "Cries loudly" , "Cries noisily" .)