They were accustomed to attack treacherously hidden in the water, disguising their long and murderous eyes like the visual antennae of the monsters of the deep.

This aggression without danger appeared to revive in his soul the outraged souls of a hundred Mediterranean ancestors, cruel and piratical perhaps, but who, nevertheless, had sought the enemy face to face with naked breast, battle-axe in hand, and the barbed harpoon for boarding ship as their only means of struggle.
"If they would torpedo only the armed vessels!" he added.

"War is a form of savagery, and it is necessary to shut the eyes to its treacherous blows, accepting them as glorious achievements....

But there is something more than that: you know it well.

They sink merchant vessels, and passenger ships carrying women, carrying little children...." His weather-beaten cheeks assumed the color of a baked brick.