Torment soldiers on top of crumbling salient (9)
I believe the answer is:
tantalise
'torment' is the definition.
('torment'->'tantalize' is in my internal thesaurus and 'ize'->'ise')
'soldiers on top of crumbling salient' is the wordplay.
'soldiers' becomes 'ta' (abbreviation for Territorial Army**).
'on top' is a charade indicator (letters next to each other).
'of crumbling' is an anagram indicator (I've seen 'crumble' mean this).
'salient' with letters rearranged gives 'ntalise'.
'ta'+'ntalise'='TANTALISE'
(Other definitions for tantalise that I've seen before include "Tease cruelly" , "Tease, torment" , "Tease and entice" .)