Scheme by one engineer after attack artillery repulsed (8)
I believe the answer is:
artifice
'scheme' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'one engineer after attack artillery repulsed' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite understand how this works, but
'one' could be 'i' (Roman numeral) and 'i' is found in the answer.
'engineer' could be 'ce' and 'ce' is present in the answer.
This may be the basis of clue (or it may be nonsense).
'by' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for artifice that I've seen before include "Clever trickery" , "Clever device" , "skilful deception" , "Trick, device" , "Clever trick intended to mislead" .)