Soldiers with blanket, asleep, essentially woken by this? (8)
I believe the answer is:
reveille
'soldiers with blanket asleep essentially woken by this?' is the definition.
The definition suggests a singular noun which matches the answer. I also know that 'asleep' relates to this answer.
'soldiers with blanket asleep essentially' is the wordplay.
'soldiers' becomes 're' (Royal Engineers**).
'with' is a charade indicator (letters next to each other).
'blanket' becomes 'veil' (both can mean a film or layer covering something).
'essentially' indicates the central letters.
The central letters of 'asleep' are 'le'.
're'+'veil'+'le'='REVEILLE'
(Other definitions for reveille that I've seen before include "Early call" , "The get-out-of-bed bugle call" , "Soldiers' wakening call" , "Soldiers' wake-up call" , "Morning call" .)