Herald

[dave1948]

Struggling

7a
Honour soldier at the front breaking through to ship's control (7)
?B?E?S abbess or obsess ??

16d
Mount a tree to view over and take away the unknown factor (4)
?E?O

13a Stop at last a magnate being something in church (6)
???T?R

2d Lecherous river spirit is OTT...(6)
?M?U?E Impure??

[dave1948]

Thank you Penelope 2.

I can only see Nebo (with Slaney's explanation of ebony - y) but not sure how it comes together !

[slaney]

Gee thanks Dave, but not at all sure of the wordplay..I can't see an anagram indicator for a start.
Bo is a tree, but no word for View which can have an X or Y removed which can be put "over" comes to mind.

[Mamyalynne]

Reversal is what I tried first, hence my messing it up.

[penelope2]

I went for Etna as in my previous post as Xante is a liqueur made from a pear tree, then used the reversal and removed 'X'. Perhaps dave1948 could let us know whenever the answer is published.

[dannyk13]

I agree with Penelope.It is an anagram rather than a reversal.A badly worded clue , Imo

[bibblebub]

penelope2 - so you have different letters than what has been given here? (some of us don't have the crossword)

[dave1948]

I looked Nebo in Wikipedia and it has a view over the Holy Land and the y from ebony must be the unknown

[penelope2]

Interesting debate, look forward to knowing the answer.

[dave1948]

Thank you all. Time to put it to bed

[dave1948]

For Penelope 2 and all others who contributed to the discussion the answer to 16d is given as Nebo (which was the finally verdict of Answerbank contributors) Well done !!

[Mamyalynne]

Thank you for the feedback.

[penelope2]

Thanx for the feedback, interesting.