Further evaluate soldiers taking a couple of ships round East (8)
I believe the answer is:
reassess
'further evaluate' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'soldiers taking a couple of ships round east' is the wordplay.
'soldiers' becomes 're' (Royal Engineers).
'taking' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'couple of ships' becomes 'SS SS' (SS can mean a steamship).
'round' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'east' becomes 'e' (abbreviation).
'ssss' going around 'e' is 'ssess'.
're'+'a'+'ssess'='REASSESS'
(Other definitions for reassess that I've seen before include "evaluate anew" , "Form new opinion" , "Estimate again, take another measure of" , "Test again" , "Make another appraisal" .)