Recall soldiers with small cars came outside (9)
I believe the answer is:
reminisce
'recall' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'soldiers with small cars came outside' is the wordplay.
'soldiers' becomes 're' (Royal Engineers).
'with' is a charade indicator (letters next to each other).
'small cars' becomes 'minis' (I've seen this before).
'outside' says to hollow out the word (remove centre letters).
'came' with its middle taken out is 'ce'.
're'+'minis'+'ce'='REMINISCE'
(Other definitions for reminisce that I've seen before include "Give account of past" , "Think back fondly" , "Remember past" , "Think of past events" , "Talk like an oldie" .)